Every summer house has a bunch of dusty mystery books left by the last renter. My house is no different, but there haven’t been any renters, just the owners and myself. While looking for something mindless to read, I came upon a self-help book entitled “Looking Out For #1,” by Robert J. Ringer, written in 1977. What was it doing in the bookcase? There were plenty of books on unsolved murders and other ghastly reads like Charles Manson, so this book just looked out of place. I hadn’t read it, so out of curiosity I skimmed through the book. I must say I found a rather thought-provoking statement. According to Ringer, “The degree of complications in one’s life corresponds directly to his insistence on dwelling on the way he thinks the world ought to be rather than the way it actually is.” I must have mulled it over in my mind for 10 minutes before I realized how profound the statement was.

How simple is that, I thought? We all have a tendency to set our expectations high about our situations or fantasize about the outcome. It would be ideal if our expectations were in the world of reality rather than our own reality, but isn’t this what dreams and nightmares are made of? Many people just love the highs and lows of life. Yesterday my friend called to tell me her son was involved in a minor traffic infraction, but in his mind, he was off to spend 10 years in forced labor.

After reading the book, here’s what I came up with.

1. Quit leaping to conclusions. Notice I didn’t say “jump”? How would you know what is going to happen anyway? If you knew what was going to happen, why did you make it happen? When we jump to a conclusion, we’ve just created our own new reality. Reality is reality, and it doesn’t care what you think. It’s like all blue-eyed women cheat, so she’s blue-eyed and, there you go.
2. Stop making up rules about the universe. Get done with “It should be this way, or it ought to be that way.” Basically, these are just rules to keep yourself in order. The problem is we also impose them on others. There’s that out of reality thing again.
3. Think more like Columbo, and just get the facts. Do you remember Colombo, played by Peter Faulk? He was one of the best fact finders of his time. He never got ruffled, and when in a pinch he would say, “Can I ask you another thing?” Rather than telling, Columbo was always investigating and verifying his facts.
4. Stop looking for murders behind the shower curtain. I found an interesting statistic about people and their showers. When interviewed the majority of people think something awful is behind their shower curtain. How about giving up Law and Order and turning on something more fun or inspiring.
5. If Tony can do it, so can you. My dad had a laryngectomy in the early 60′s. The only way to relearn speech was through a method called esophageal speech. It was painful and difficult, but Tony learned, went on to teach others and became a true inspiration.

Life can be hard enough anyway; why not make it better?