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regina brett’s 45 life lessons and 5 to grow on. . .

Regina Brett’s 45 life lessons and 5 to grow on
by Regina Brett
Sunday May 28, 2006, 10:13 AM
To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me.

It is the most-requested column I’ve ever written. My odometer rolls over to 50 this week, so here’s an update:

1. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.

2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.

3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

4. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

5. Pay off your credit cards every month.

6. You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

7. Cry with someone. It’s more healing than crying alone.

8. It’s OK to get angry with God. He can take it.

9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.

10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.

11. Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present.

12. It’s OK to let your children see you cry.

13. Don’t compare your life to others’. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn’t be in it.

15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don’t worry; God never blinks.

16. Life is too short for long pity parties. Get busy living, or get busy dying.

17. You can get through anything if you stay put in today.

18. A writer writes. If you want to be a writer, write.

19. It’s never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.

20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer.

21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don’t save it for a special occasion. Today is special.

22. Overprepare, then go with the flow.

23. Be eccentric now. Don’t wait for old age to wear purple.

24. The most important sex organ is the brain.

25. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.

26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words: “In five years, will this matter?”

27. Always choose life.

28. Forgive everyone everything.

29. What other people think of you is none of your business.

30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.

31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

32. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.

33. Believe in miracles.

34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn’t do.

35. Whatever doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger.

36. Growing old beats the alternative – dying young.

37. Your children get only one childhood. Make it memorable.

38. Read the Psalms. They cover every human emotion.

39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.

40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back.

41. Don’t audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.

42. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.

43. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.

44. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.

45. The best is yet to come.

46. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

47. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.

48. If you don’t ask, you don’t get.

49. Yield.

50. Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift.

To reach this Plain Dealer columnist:

rbrett@plaind.com, 216-999-6328

www.reginabrett.com

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sun and rain and being busy

Some magazine articles, movies, tv programs, books, experts, DVDs, tell us we need to multitask if we want to get ahead, become successful, have the right friends, be respected, and, of course, have a lot of money in the process. We’ll be happy, we’re told, living the way of constant doing and striving. However, if we don’t question that idea, we’ll also be burdened by our fragmented thoughts, and an inability to slow down. And when an opportunity comes to have an evening of aloneness – even when the aloneness doesn’t mean lonely, just a chance to catch up with other parts of ourselves – we feel pressured to make plans. We tell ourselves that we shouldn’t be alone for an evening, a day, a weekend, – we should be out doing.

If all that busyness was working, why are there so many depressed people, people on the verge of suicide stopped only by prescription drugs, or lifted up only by prescription drugs, so many people unable to sleep, so many sick people, so many people just plain unhappy because they’re not doing what they enjoy? It’s a fair question to ask, isn’t it?

Today is a rainy day; lately there have been complaints about the rain. The sun is teasing us – it’s sunny, then it’s not. Spirits are dampened; maybe weekend plans have to be changed. But rainy days are wonderful, too. Rain has a way of slowing things. It can change a day of rushing to a more mellow one, and that means we’re less stressed. We don’t need to change our plans, just our mind set, and then getting rained on at the beach becomes fun. Staying indoors on a beautiful sunny day is a little difficult; the sun seems to say come out and play. Rain, however, says, you can go out if you want, but you can also stay in. Don’t worry, you’ll be busy, but it’ll be a different kind of busyness; you’ll be busy being still – just for a little while.

I used to feel that practicing Qi Gong with Matthew Cohen’s Fire and Water DVD was an imposition. Then there came a time when I realized the benefits were outweighing any imposition felt, and that every time I practiced, I learned something new -maybe more insight about the way of a particular movement, or of a word not heard before that brought new meaning to not only Qi Gong, but life in general. Now practicing the once difficult empty stance is a pleasure, and Qi Gong is not an imposition. The empty stance is “full of emptiness” Matthew Cohen says. And slowly an understanding that the busyness of being still – of being empty – has its own rewards.

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What! Pick your own mussel sauce?!!!

Yes, it’s true. Ditch Plains, a brilliant restaurant down in Greenwich Village, was given a name I can never remember so now I carry the business card around in my wallet.

29 bedford street follow the button down shirts and bohemian camisoles getting crafty drinks at the bar like the “Drunken Preppy.” Yum.
Then see the menu. It is basically a summer field of paradise. Lobster roll, clam strips, fish and chips…. and the mussels… fours sauces to choose your own adventure from. Served in a large metal pot… and a basket of fries you will eat and eat and it will seem to refill from the bottom in crispy bistro fry wonder. Now go stop wasting time. You will want to go to there.

www.ditch-plains.com/

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cell phones in public places

I can be exasperating when it comes to technology, and for me that means anything beyond a paper and pen. I know that. The truth is, I don’t care – not that I don’t care about technology, no, no, I don’t care about being exasperating sometimes. For instance, do we always have to answer the cell phone? – Perhaps no, unless it’s an important call. I feel that answering a call when you’re out with someone is a slap in the face to the someone you’re with, and also it’s an exercise in patience for anybody in a public place forced to listen. Sometimes a call is urgent. Urgent, however, means different things to different people. Cell phone users are often amusing though, and can become entertainers of sorts – the motions, facial expressions, and tone of voice, could easily be part of a comedy show. So, I’ll just say this, thanks for the laughs. And, if I’ve made you laugh when taking an “urgent” call in a public place, you’re welcome – for the entertainment 🙂

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Cozy country cabin in the middle of the lower east side NYC…

I just went to a quaint storybook restaurant straight from a time when eating with a dead animal head above you spoke for fresh meat. Freemans is found at the end of a tiny alley (as they describe on their website, which I took as filled with lurking sinister figures waiting with cockney accents to pick my pockets, but is actually a sunshine filled wide walkway between two buildings, where those on the waiting list chat while adjusting flouncey hipster sunglasses).

Since I went for brunch I cannot give the full lay down of the menu, except to say that everything we had was good. The “Roast pork sandwich, pickled zucchini, and garlic mayonnaise with green salad” -amazing! Why has no one fed me pickled zucchini before? Shame on you. Thin, maintaining flush positioning next to other sandwich parts and not falling out. Brilliant. Their cocktails came in squeal worthy early century champagne glasses. Squat and cradling the bubbles that spurted up from just above the stem. Even the vegetarian could not speak poorly about the plentiful taxidermy that hangs above on the surrounding wood walls. It really just completes the log inn/restaurant by the side of the road feel frequented by adventurers and those who haven’t died of diphtheria yet on the Oregon Trail. (Though we gave thanks for not sitting at the table that had an ooh to realistic looking wasp hive dangling precariously over head). We left full and lighthearted with a fantasy mini getaway feeling as we adjusted our hipster sunglasses and ran from this constant drizzle.

www.freemansrestaurant.com

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david carradine

Thank you David Carradine for all the terrific entertainment you provided in the Kung Fu movies which I very much enjoyed watching,

Now, at this time of your passing, hopefully, people the world over will keep in mind that only your family and friends need know how you died. As for the rest of us, it’s none of our business. All indications suggest that you were well-loved and that you loved well.

Go in peace.

www.david-carradine.com

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osho, st. francis of assisi, and. . .

I have a DVD called Love And Hate Two Sides of the Same Coin, in which Osho talks about awareness, and of “Never judging anybody by his act.” and to, “Try to find out his awareness. Otherwise, don’t judge at all.” During the entire time of the DVD the camera rests on Osho’s calm face, his steady, clear eyes, and his hands which move slowly and gracefully when he speaks. The DVD was inside of a book I’d bought a few years ago, and read with mild interest. Now with the rereading of it, along with watching and listening to the DVD, I see flashes of The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle in Osho’s words. The power of now, awareness, consciousness – what would the world be like were we all to put them to use?

I didn’t know until this week that the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi was written in his honor during World War I. Did you? The movie, Reluctant Saint – Francis of Assisi, is based on the biography by Donald Spoto, and makes all other movies about St. Francis look like fiction. In an interview, Donald Spoto said that “He’s one of the most misunderstood people in the history of organized religion.” I think he knows what he’s talking about since he says, “I’m a theologian by training. I did a Doctorate in theology with a concentration in New Testament studies, and the primary work as a teacher that I did for many years was as a professor of religious studies of scripture, of Biblical literature and languages, and Christian mysticism.” With this background, it would seem that if anyone can tell the true story of St. Francis it’s Donald Spoto. He’s also written seventeen other books on “the lives of enormously creative and important artists, such as, Alfred Hitchcock, and Tennessee Williams, and great actors like Laurence Olivier and Ingrid Bergman, and a great American woman, Jacqueline Kennedy Onasis.”

Maybe you’re looking for some great books for summer reading? Maybe you’ve found some?

* * * * * * *

www.osho.com
www.hitchcock.tv
www.laurenceolivier.com
www.ingridbergman.com
www.tennesseewilliams.net