I discovered this in Reader’s Digest.

What a profound idea! When you think about it, life really is a terminal illness. And that’s not a pessimistic or morbid thought; it’s a positive one. From the moment of birth, we begin the process of dying, and if we “live as if we were dying” (the sentiment in numerous songs and books), we live each day as if it’s to be cherished.

We humans go through life carrying any number of burdens. Here’s a short list:

• chronic poor health
• abusive or neglectful parent(s)
• a physical disability
• a learning disability
• a congenital defect guaranteed to shorten our life expectancy
• financial difficulties
• an ill or disabled parent, sibling, or child
• a difficult person whose goal is to make you miserable, scare you, or harm you
• loss of a loved one–especially under unexpected, tragic, or mysterious circumstances

The rare person may go through life free of significant burdens. We can only hope that those gifted with such an extraordinarily easy life would dedicate their lives to helping others.

But is an easy life really a gift? What would a person be like, if he or she never experienced any real hardship?

Perhaps life itself is the gift. A gift isn’t necessarily something we like. Remember when you were a kid, and someone–perhaps a “shirt-tail” relative who didn’t know you well, or an older person out of touch with what kids were into–gave you a gift you hated? You probably had to thank the giver for it anyway, right?

It seems as though a life free of hardship wouldn’t be very effective for making us strong and productive people. How could anyone be thankful for an easy life if they had never known hardship? You can only be thankful for ease and comfort if you know what it’s like to suffer, I believe.

Life as a terminal illness. Think of life this way, and we can live with joy and passion, because each day is something to be thankful for.

It happens to most people sometimes; some more than others, and generally depending on the emotional state of our lives at the time. But let’s say you’re having an average day, and you receive either good news or bad news…a compliment or a criticism…a lucky break or another dead end. We go from “okay” to either elated or depressed, just like that.

That’s because we already have existing neuronal pathways in our brains: some that lead to good feelings and some that lead to bad. A single event, no matter how insignificant it may seem, can set off a series of synapses that lead straight to a good or bad ancient memory, and while we may not even recognize the memory, it’s there in our subconscious, with all the emotions attached.

And that memory, however small a part of our life it actually represents, defines our life for the time being: either “good” or “bad.” This is a simplified version of the complexity of the human brain. But it approximates what’s happening in your head when you suddenly find yourself in a good or bad mood.

Thankfully, no one was hurt. But this is so sad. Although “only” about 25% of the mall was directly affected, the entire shopping center had to be evacuated while it was determined safe enough for the explosive-sniffing dog to come in and do her job. (A backpack left by the suspect supposedly contained a bomb.) The floor of the entire mall was covered in standing water, and probably a great deal of the merchandise in the stores smells like smoke.

The businesses hoped to be online again by Thanksgiving. I’m not much of a mall shopper, but the community depends on the tax revenue and the employment it provides. I don’t have television reception, so, out of curiosity, I started to watch video footage of the fire online…but I couldn’t continue. It reminded me too much of September 11. I decided I didn’t need those disturbing images in my head.

I finally visited the mall again a few months ago. Most, if not all, the stores were open, but some required special temporary passageways to get to. It was tiresome and drew attention to what had happened. Plenty of people seemed to be there, however, having a good time and spending money; I guess that’s a testament to human resiliency. Good for them for supporting the economy, too.

Paul Hegstrom, Ph.D., author of Broken Children, Grown-Up Pain, explains it this way:

“A child who is under the age of puberty is lacking the chemicals in the brain to see the whole picture and make decisions. So the wounds that happen in childhood, a time during which the child does not have the capacity to understand, trigger the thalamus at the point of the wound to make its own decision to keep the child from being hurt again. A decision based on the thalamus is not based on the whole picture of the event that just happened, it is based on the adrenaline of the events and the relationship of the current event to previous events and trauma stored in the brain. Once a child is traumatized, the child will be more vulnerable to perceiving future events as trauma. …

“Every experience, every bit of input, including things that we are not even aware of, are all being interpreted by the thalamus as the input goes into the brain. If we were mature and could resolve our issues, we could, by our choice, receive the good, delete the bad, and choose the things that we want to think upon.

“However, in the wounded child’s brain, the thalamus makes the decisions.” Broken Children, Grown-Up Pain by Paul Hegstrom, Ph.D., page 16.

A brief examination of two stress hormones is in order here. Adrenaline, which Dr. Hegstrom refers to, works in the short term; it’s necessary for survival in crisis situations where a fight-or-flight response is required. Cortisol, on the other hand, works in the long term, increasing blood pressure and blood sugar and reducing immune response.

For the traumatized child, life becomes a long, drawn-out crisis. In a psychological phenomenon called hypervigilance, the traumatized child spends most of her time on the lookout for trouble, and as a result, will easily be triggered into fear, anxiety, and depression. Fear increases the level of cortisol, causing chronic tension and anxiety; it can become a frightening, out-of-control vicious cycle.

And it can continue into adulthood, unless we learn to recognize what’s happening in our brains and to take control of our thoughts.

For more information, see http://helpineedahug.com.

Huh?

Well, think about it. A book is a stack of paper glued together, worth perhaps a couple bucks. A CD is a plastic disc, worth even less.

Worse still are the intangible products. Weight loss? Starvation. Exercise? Hard work and lost time. Giving up a bad habit? Deprivation.

The reality is, selling is harder than it looks, because nobody wants to buy what you’re selling. So you need to figure out what you’re really selling—and when you do, selling it suddenly becomes much easier.

Books? Adventure, escape, the tools to create a better life. Music? Relaxation, happiness, inspiration to create and produce wonderful things. Weight loss and exercise? A whole new “you,” one who’s more attractive, more desirable, better able to enjoy the good things in life.

Nearly everybody wants certain things: money, leisure time, a bright future, good relationships, attractiveness and desirability; perhaps prestige, convenience, bragging rights, inclusion in an exclusive group. Figure out how to transform your product or service into one of these things, and it will practically sell itself.

That’s why we marketing people learn to understand what motivates humans to buy. And that’s why people who have products and services to sell need us marketing people.

You’re probably at least somewhat familiar with the Old Testament story of Joseph. He was one of the twelve sons of Jacob, and the best loved. The reasons for the favoritism were complicated (as is the entire story of the patriarchal family), but it had a lot to do with Joseph’s mother, Rachel, being Jacob’s favorite wife.

Joseph unwisely flaunted his “favored” status, kindling his brothers’ anger and resentment toward him. They eventually got tired of this, conspired to kill him…then changed their minds, threw him into a pit, and left him for dead. Long story short, he ended up in a position of power in Pharaoh’s court and, many years later, delivered his family from starvation during a famine.

He forgave his brothers, saying, “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.” And that’s the literal truth. Had none of this happened, the patriarchal family would have died out; instead, they became the ancestors of Jesus. You can read the story in Genesis chapter 37 and following.

Colin Tipping, as quoted in Joe Vitale’s book The Key, talks about “radical forgiveness,” saying, “…nothing bad or negative or evil happened at all. In fact, what happened didn’t happen to you but for you. It happened to help you awaken and grow. It was part of the curriculum to bring you to where you are now. And from where you are, you can attract miracles.”

Let it be said, I fully support and defend everyone’s right to do with their own money as they please—within legal, ethical, and moral bounds, of course.

Still, that that leaves the question: What does one DO with all that money? As we explored recently, there are only so many houses, vehicles, trips, meals out, and nice outfits that anyone would have time to enjoy in a lifetime. This leads to the important matter of people’s attitudes toward money.

What motivates people to hunger for a windfall in the form of, say, winning the lottery? Studies have shown that most people who win the lottery revert to their former financial status within two years. This suggests that people are programmed to squander money they don’t believe they deserve. Come to think of it, squandering is really the only way to use up large quantities of money in a lifetime (not including such activities as burning it, burying it, etc.)…with one exception:

Giving it away, like Charlie and Yvonne did in It Could Happen to You. (Be sure you’ve read my two previous posts.) Even a small gift, like bus tokens for all the evening commuters at a single train station, makes a lot of people’s day.

I propose that each one of us put a plan in place for using any “extra” money that comes our way. That way, we’re not inviting some mishap to take away any abundance we feel we don’t deserve. Maybe not many people feel they have ANY extra right now; perhaps most would like to be on the receiving end of someone else’s generosity. That’s understandable. But by thinking in terms of who or what we would give money to, rather than struggling to set aside an emergency fund to cover the next car breakdown or other disaster, we foster an abundance mentality rather than a poverty mentality.

This is part of the Law of Attraction.

Suppose the tax rate for that income bracket in the entertainer’s country of residence is 90%–that leaves $41M. Suppose it’s 98%! That still leaves $8.2M. Oh, and this particular entertainer has been around for several decades; so, assuming 2007 was a fairly typical year (adjusting for inflation), we’re talking about $8M a year, for years and years. What on earth does one do with $8M?! Per year?!

In the United States, at least, $2M will buy one of the nicest houses in one of the nicest neighborhoods in most cities. If you want to live in Manhattan or celebrity-infested Hollywood, you might use the whole $8M. And maybe, depending on your career and/or your significant other’s career, you may need a house on each coast. You’ll want a couple of cars, perhaps a boat, maybe a private plane. A few trips per year. Meals out a few nights a week. A smashing wardrobe.

I’m running out of ideas. It seems to me that if you’re making millions of dollars per year, either you’re soon going to have a stockpile of money, or you’ll have to get creative about how to use it. Because, as we all know…you can’t take it with you.

Charlie, a New York City cop, doesn’t have the right change to tip Yvonne, a waitress in the midst of a personal and financial meltdown. So he promises to split with her the winnings from his lottery ticket–if he wins.

He wins. After figuring in the other people who picked winning numbers, Charlie gets $4 million–$2M for him, $2M for Yvonne.

Problem is, Charlie’s shrewish wife flips out when she hears they’ll have to share the loot. Unable to persuade him to renege on his promise, she files for divorce. She gets her half of Charlie’s $2M. Then she takes Charlie to court for his half of the $2M–and wins.

It gets worse. She also sues for Yvonne’s $2M—and wins. In the meantime, Charlie and Yvonne have developed a romantic relationship founded on their shared philosophy of kindness and generosity, having enjoyed some wonderful times together giving money away and making other people happy. So they have no money, but they have each other.

Now it gets better. A New York Times reporter, having followed their every move, does a story on them and asks all the citizens of New York City to send them money. In all, Charlie and Yvonne receive $600,000 and many warm fuzzies.

Meanwhile, Charlie’s shrewish ex-wife has married her slimy financial advisor—who then cleans out their bank account and flees the country.

The thing I like about this movie is that positive traits like honesty, generosity, and keeping one’s word are rewarded, while their corresponding negative traits are punished. For a while, at least, we can believe that life is fair and that things work out right.

I thought of being a prisoner of war. If you’re a POW, you’re cold (or hot), underfed (or offered bad food), and surrounded by people who want to kill you. You sleep on the floor, with no covers. You have bugs and snakes and other scary creatures skulking around you. Still, you live with daily hope that you’ll escape or be rescued, that you’ll overpower or kill your captors, that the war will end. Your circumstances couldn’t be much worse, yet you can believe that at any moment they will get better.

Life in an iron lung…that’s forever. Some people have been able to escape this life by having surgery to enable them to breathe on their own, but I understand that Dianne had some spinal abnormality that prevented such a surgery. I suppose they couldn’t take her out of there long enough to even investigate what might be done. Yet she was surrounded by family and friends who tirelessly (as far as we can see) did what needed to be done to make sure she was safe and as comfortable as possible.

Several years ago, I volunteered weekly for six years (and as a substitute for two more) with a therapeutic horseback riding program, working with kids with a range of disabilities. From what I know of parents of disabled children, life’s biggest fear is: “Who will take care of my child when I die or become too old and feeble?” Perhaps it was a mercy that Dianne died while her aging, failing parents were still able to care for her on a daily basis.

Who knows, perhaps she was at least as happy with her life as I am with mine. Still, she certainly had more “complaining rights” than I have ever had. So when I heard this story, I vowed that I would never complain again. Perhaps Dianne would be pleased to know that her sacrifice of a “normal” life has inspired others to complain less about theirs.