Tag: Rules To Live By

3 Simple Rules

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When I used to do stand up, I would tell myself 3 things right before I went on stage:

1. Be yourself

2. Have fun

3. It’s important

And I am trying to tell myself these same 3 rules at the start of every day.

I did not sleep well last night. One of the darlings came into bed with me at around 2. She’s nearly as big as an adult so she woke me. We have no air conditioning. It was  hot. I tossed and turned. Then I  moved to my daughter’s now-empty bed. I’d heard an antidote to insomnia is changing rooms.

As I walked in the hall, I heard the television was still on. My husband stays up way too late into the night, sometimes until 3 or 4. Then of course he falls asleep in the early evening hours when you’re talking to him (blame the Parkinson’s). Hearing the television just made me feel all sad and jumbled — my life, my restless night, my work. And I couldn’t wait until morning so I could dump all my thoughts, worries, dreams, into my journal.

1. Be yourself. Because there is a unique point of view based on a unique life’s journey. And for whatever reason, this is my journey. This is mine.

2. Have fun. Because I seriously believe that we are put on this earth to give and experience joy. The goal in life is to be happy, joyous, and free.

3. It’s important. Because I can easily dismiss my point of view, or expect that I am less than. But what I have to say is important.

I did fall asleep in my daughter’s bed and woke to write all this in my journal.

How Lucky — To Work So Hard!

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My fake spouse reassured me, “It takes a long time to become an overnight success.”

We were at a call back for a Kodak commercial. I was auditioning for the part of a young mother. I didn’t get the part, but I got that awesome advice!

I had been bitching about my slow-moving talk show career to the actor who was auditioning as the father. I said, “You know I worked so hard on my cable show, Mary Beth & Friends, and honestly, I am surprised I haven’t become the new Katie Couric.”

This was years ago. I never forgot my pretend husband’s wisdom. It kept me going. Success takes time. Fake husbands (and actors) can be so smart.

But now it seems the whole world is discussing this wisdom:

Luck is out. Hard work is in.

Last night, I was listening to the Ted Talk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xE6lWGzO_7A from David Shenk, author of The Genius in All of Us. http://geniusblog.davidshenk.com/

Here’s what I got. Genes don’t matter a hill of beans unless you work hard. There’s no such thing as born smart!

This is a difficult revelation for me – me! The daughter of a genius (okay, two geniuses)! I always felt I had a slight genetic, intellectual advantage — swimming as I was in the Mensa gene pool. But no, sorry, not so.

My working 3 jobs, auditioning for commercials, and producing and hosting my own cable show probably mattered more to my current success (ahem!) than my brainy family tree.

I was thinking about this today, when from the LinkedIn group, LinkEds & writers, Indy Quillen, emailed her introduction.

Indy said, “Many years ago, when I excitedly showed my martial arts teacher my first place trophy, he smiled and said, ‘See how lucky you are when you work hard?’ I’ve never forgotten that lesson!”

Love that!

I don’t know how to fit in my awareness of the importance of hard work to my Rules for Living.

Maybe Rule Number 3? Remember your hoops of steel (priorities) — even when you think success should occur magically and quickly. Success takes time.

And hard work is 1 of 3 parts that makes up community:  https://mbcoudal.wordpress.com/2011/05/07/what-is-community/

Rule #2 Escape Through Literature

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I hope my kids always think of me as someone who loves to read. I think of my parents as book lovers.

When I remember my mother from my childhood, I remember her head bowed to a book, especially late into the night. My mother- in-law was like that too; she always had a book close at hand.

I think reading helped my mother and mother-in-law cope with their respective tasks and stresses of each raising five children. And it wasn’t nonfiction, how-to books that they read. No, they found their answers in literary fiction. They read heavy hitters like EL Doctorow, John Fowles, Doris Lessing, and Margaret Atwood.

Reading, like meditating, does good things to the body. I’m sure there’s some science that shows physiological benefits to the body when we curl up with a book — the heart rate slows and the breath gains depth. We enter another world when we read, as if in a trance. We focus intently and we lose ourselves.

When I am stressed from working or parenting, I grab a book. Right now I am reading “The Other,” by David Guterson. It is good literary fiction, a great way to escape. I have to bow my head to it now.