Saturday, January 28, 2012

Finding Beauty All Around You

From the Desk of Doctor B. D. Septive
The Most Self-Helpiest of All Self-Help Gurus

Lint
            Put your hand in your pocket and pull out some lint.  If there’s no lint in your pocket, check your bellybutton.  Turn it over in your hand (the lint, not your bellybutton) and examine the fine texture of the threads, cloth, and yarn.  Use your fingers to mold and shape it until you have a perfectly proportioned feline toupee and take it to Mr. Whiskers.  When you get there, ask Mr. Whiskers if you can give it to his cat.  You’ve created something from practically nothing, and made a gift for one of God’s creatures.  He’ll love you for it and will thank you as only cats can. He will by rub against your ankles, purr on your lap, and use his finely sharpened claws to rip the leather off your Barco-Lounger.

                                                     Grass
            Look at the grass in the park and see how green, lush and perfect it is.  It’s natural and it’s beautiful.  Well, it’s not really natural.  All the weeds have been poisoned and someone dumps tons of water on it every other day.  Certainly, fertilizer enhances the color and makes it grow.  Of course somebody has to mow it at least once a week, so it’s not really natural at all.  On second thought, forget the grass in the park and go to an open field where grass and weeds live together in unspoken, unbroken harmony.  Observe the delicate sway of leaves and stems in the soft autumn breeze.  Think of the truly beautiful force of nature and watch as the plants are ripped from their roots and eaten by cattle or a rogue band of Pomeranians.

                                      The Other Kind of Grass
            Now go back to the park and take in all the beauty of the other kind of grass.  Buy a bag or two from that guy named Liberty or his girlfriend, Cold Sore.  Light it on fire and experience the beauty, peace, and herbal relaxation it brings to your mind, your imagination, your taste buds.  Enjoy the laughter when it comes and encourage others to laugh along with you.  There is no reason to explain why you are laughing.  They’ll forget in about eight seconds anyway.  Just take in all the beauty that floats by and feel it massage your multi-colored brain cells.

NEXT TIME:   Finding the beauty in your colonoscopy.

Monday, January 23, 2012

Finding the Spirit of Your Spirituality

                “Your path through the universe is powered by your imaginary imagination.”
                                                                                         Yogi Singhsong

            What you seek is an ultimate truth; something indisputable like “we are who we are”, or “women’s clothes always cost more than men’s”, or “Letterman is funnier than Leno.”  And just exactly how do we go about finding such a truth?  There are so many ways.
Find Beauty in the Everyday
         There are countless things you don’t even notice that make every day on Earth a treasure.  Tune in to the experience and you will find beauty where you never saw it  before.
 Sunset or Mud Puddle                                                                             
          A sunset can certainly be holy as can cheese or undershirts.  If your undershirt doesn’t have any holes you will never get your head in.  Most people look at a mud puddle and see nothing but a medium brown swine pool.  I want you to think of that mud puddle as divine.  If your chief rival falls into that mud puddle, it will be a divine experience for you, especially if you are both on the way to give an important presentation to the same billion dollar client.  Your opponent can either be an hour late or he can go to the presentation looking like he slid head first into third base during a rain delay.  That would be truly beautiful. 

NEXT TIME: Lint, grass, and the other kind of grass.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Feel the Wind in Your Hair

From the desk of Doctor B. D. Septive - The Most Self-Helpiest of all Self-Help Gurus
             If you still haven’t figured out who you are or why you’re here, try this exercise.  It is guaranteed to get you one step closer to your goal than the last step you took and one step farther away than the next.  If you listen, you shall hear.  If you look, you shall see.  If you smell, you shall be repulsed.
            Go outdoors and feel the wind in your hair.  If it’s not a windy day, stand in front of a fan.  No, don’t just stand there; turn it on.  If that’s too difficult, drive with your head out the window the way your Cocker Spaniel does.  Whether it’s you or Princess driving with your heads out the window, please wear goggles.  There’s nothing worse than having your eyes pummeled with bugs, pebbles, or dirty diapers.  I understand few things are more interesting to a Cocker Spaniel than a dirty diaper but even a dog would rather not have that in her eyes.  It’s hard enough to change lanes or make a right turn with your head out the window.  Don’t try to do it in a poop mask.
             When you return home from your excursion, you and Princess should change places for the day.  You can chase your tail for twenty-four hours straight and she can enjoy your furniture without listening to you obsess about shedding and muddy footprints.  But that’s not all.  With her sense of smell and your ability to spot potential mates, ponder the possibilities.  Of course, while you talk to that cute guy you must resist the urge to lick.
























Sunday, January 8, 2012

Are Your Goals Achievable or Are They Ridiculous?

From the desk of Doctor B. D. Septive,
the most self-helpiest of all self-help gurus. 

            You must think of where you are and where you want to go before you can answer this question.  If you are in a college classroom and you want to be in the chair of Sony’s CEO, your goal is ridiculous.  It’s preposterous to even entertain the notion you could have that job.  Even if you just want to sit in his chair for a minute, it’s a longshot.  However if your goal is to sit in a chair and watch a Sony, I say go for it.  If your goal is not achievable it will lead to nothing but frustration, anger, and standing in front of a car dealership in a gorilla costume.
              You can’t expect to walk down the street of your pitifully insignificant life and plop yourself into a position of such power and responsibility as Chief Executive Officer of a successful multi-national corporation.  That is unless you’re the current CEO’s offspring.  In that case you don’t really need to do anything except get expelled from military school and flunk out of Yale.  When daddy gets tired of all the headaches that come with the job, he will hand it over to you and watch from a distance as you systematically wreck every piece of the company, a little bit at a time.  He knows you pretty well and that’s why he will sell all his stock just before he announces your new position.
            But since the great majority of you are not the offspring of a CEO you’ll have to do a lot of work and be pretty damn good at it to advance to such a position.  So unless you have eight or nine Pulitzer Prizes and have found a way to make gold from orange juice, stop with the unrealistic expectations, already. 
            You understand yourself better than anyone else, even if you don’t want to.  You know how cranky you get when you set a goal you can’t reach.  You scream and throw popcorn at passersby or you climb into the pen with all the puppies until the mall cops throw you in the holding cell.  But that is truly a blessing in disguise because it is a perfect place to think, to reflect on how to set and achieve goals that are attainable to you and the voices that won’t leave you alone.