The Be-Attitudes

My horse trials scoring buddy and friend, architect David Johnson, recently read the manuscript of my book, Dear Will: The True Story of a Mother Who Never Gave Up.  His reaction:  “I’ll be buying copies the day the book comes out to give my [high school- and college-age] daughters.  There are so many life lessons in there.”  

Well, I love Lucy and Caroline so a) I didn’t want them to have to wait until Fall 2013, and b) I wasn’t sure they should read the whole book at quite such young ages.

So here’s an A-Z list of the “life lessons” (David’s words but I hope he’s right) that I pray readers find in my book when Abingdon Press ships it to bookstores next spring—without all the gory backstory.  These are all cultivated rather than inborn attributes, and they have helped me overcome adversity and lead what I know is a happy and hope is a productive life.  Please note that each item is something entirely within your control.  No item requires action—or reciprocation—from anyone else.

• Be amused.  Life will throw a lot of junk at you, and at least some of it will be nasty.  A sense of humor comes in handy.  Plus, “amused” is a heck of a lot more attractive than “angry”, “annoyed”, “arrogant”, or any number of other “a” words.

• Be brave.  You’re gonna die.  We all are.  Cowering will not, repeat, not make you an exception.  Stand up and look threats in the eye.  Bonus:  When you do this, many threats—but definitely not all of them—will promptly turn tail and run the other way.

• Be calm.  There is no crisis that calls for panic.  Staying cool-headed increases your odds of finding a solution.

• Be direct.  Say what you mean, and mean what you say.  And just say it. After I (frequently) make a mess of things, various people will say, “Well, I tried to tell you.”  When I, puzzled, ask them to remind me of their Delphic pronouncement and they tell me what they actually said, I am often at a loss to understand how on earth I could ever have known what they meant by what they said.  You will do more damage and lose more opportunities by pussy-footing around the elephant in the living room than you will by just spitting it out and calling a spade a spade.  (That metaphor mash-up was fun for me and, I hope, illustratively direct for you.)

• Be educated.  I’m not talking about earning a Harvard graduate degree (although I hear they’re very nice to have).  I’m saying never stop learning and teaching yourself what you want and need to know.  I don’t care if you last saw the inside of a classroom in kindergarten, you can educate yourself.  When curiosity strikes—which, I hope, is often—but especially when you need to know something, go online (but beware the source) or go to a library (still beware the source).  If necessary, take a basic literacy course and then go online or go to a library.  We all must make decisions many times a day.  Making uninformed decisions is stupid, and stupid is self-inflicted.  Don’t sabotage yourself.  There are people—both ill- and well-intentioned—standing in line to do it for you.  Make it as difficult as possible for them.

• Be forgiving.  People will sometimes slight you and hurt you and disappoint you.  Most of the time, they will not have meant to slight, hurt, or disappoint you.  But sometimes they will.  Forgive the ones who don’t and the ones who do.  According to Buddha, “Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”  One caveat:  When people mean to hurt you, remove them from your orbit or take yourself out of theirs.  Be forgiving, not a doormat.  Be forewarned:  If someone hurts you really badly—taking-your-child-away-for-twenty-years badly, not Joey-broke-up-with-me-right-before-Homecoming badly—forgiving will be very, very hard to do.  It may take years (and years).  But it can be done.
  

• Be generous.  You have a surplus of something, whether it’s talent, time, or treasure.  Whatever it is, give it away.  With both hands.
  

• Be honest.  Your integrity lasts only as long as your truthfulness.The older I get, the less comfortable I am even with little, white, social lies.  Someone, somewhere thinks what you said was true and might act on it.  Nothing good will ensue.  You must also be honest with yourself.  Good outcomes require good decisions, which require good data.  The consequences of lying to yourself can be disastrous.

• Be intentional.  While you’re not expected to have crawled out of your crib knowing what you want to do with your life, set some goals as soon as you can and measure your proposed actions against those goals.  In the early stages, your goals will involve tomorrow, possibly even only dinner.  Eventually, they’ll involve end of life.  With career, where to live, spouse/no spouse and children/no children in between.  Don’t do something on impulse that will screw up all of your desired outcomes.  Do do stuff with forethought that makes all of your desired outcomes more likely.

• Be joyful.  Happiness is a choice, pure and simple.  Make the right one.  (Internalizing this list might help.)

• Be kind.  It’s free and priceless at the same time.  A smile at a stranger, hard news delivered softly, a helpful gesture as simple as holding a door open.  At bottom, being kind gives the lie to any suggestion that there’s nothing you can do to make the world a better place.  

• Be loyal. Relationships are to be treasured.  Changing friends, spouses, or even vendors like outfits makes for a shallow life.  Some things do last forever if you’re lucky and careful.  But not all things.  If an intimate relationship becomes toxic or a commercial relationship ceases to be mutually beneficial, then end it with honor, which is to say, end it rather than being disloyal to it.

• Be mindful.  Not only will you benefit from being intentional and aware of how your choices and behavior affect yourself, I hope you’re also mindful of the effect your have on others.  Extend a hand and lift others up rather than stomping on their toes, crawling over their backs, and standing on their heads.  Recognize that your bad day is your bad day and don’t spew it on the poor soul who has the bad luck to cross your path at the wrong time.

• Be nimble.  Whatever “it” is, it won’t go the way you planned.  I don’t know who said this first, but I stole it off the business card of Nicholas Holland, founder & CEO of Populr.me: “If ‘Plan A’ didn’t work, the alphabet has 25 more letters.”  Be okay with Plans B-Z—and make sure you have Plans B through…something.  Through Z is a little unrealistic—and would unmask you as the control freak that you are (oh, wait a minute, that’s me)—but you should definitely have a back-up plan or two or three.

• Be optimistic.  Some things in life will break your way and some won’t.  If you’re optimistic, you only have to deal with the bad stuff once: when it happens but only if it happens.  If you’re pessimistic, you constantly suffer the anxiety that everything might go wrong and you have to deal with the actual bad stuff twice:  in advance and again when it happens.

• Be patient.  Without question, the hardest one for me.  The only overnight success is dawn.  Get used to it, prepare for the long haul, and adjust your expectations accordingly.

• Be questioning. Don’t believe everything everyone tells you.  And, for sure, don’t do everything everyone tells you to do.  Not everyone—by a long shot—will have your best interests at heart.  And some people will have a different idea of what’s in your best interests than you do, and some people aren’t paying attention or are just plain wrong.  So question everything.  Believe or do only what passes your smell test.  But—and this is a very big “but”—make sure you train your nose to recognize your long-term best interests.  And your conscience.   

• Be resilient.  As determined as I am to treat all the letters of this particular alphabet equally, this one is asking very politely but persistently for a spotlight.  You’ve surely heard the punch line of W. E. Hickson’s most enduring proverb:  “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again.”  I can only conclude that he shortened it to save on paper and ink.  Add several dozen—or several hundred—”try,”s and you’ll be closer to reality.  This is what you have to be:

Image courtesy of Amazon.com

         Except YOU  can’t let deep water, sharp objects, or hot surfaces slow                    you down.

• Be self-deprecating. Which is cooler?  A:  You’re in a receiving line, and a charming older lady extends her gloved hand and asks with a smile, “Have you come far?”  Five minutes later, a friend elbows you in the ribs and says, “Do you realize you just met THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND?”  B:  You’re in a receiving line, and an older lady asks with a sneer, “Don’t you know who I am?  Why aren’t you curtsying [or bowing]?”  It works exactly the same way for us commoners.  Don’t toot your own horn.  Bonus points if, when someone toots your horn for you, you say, “Thank you.  [Name names] and I all worked very hard to achieve this result.”  (Notice there’s no “but” after “Thank you.”  Expand the compliment rather than rejecting or minimizing it.)

• Be thankful. Where do I even start?  You’re alive.  You can read this.  (If you can’t, you can learn to read this.)  From there, you’ll have to make your own list.  But I bet you quickly run out of paper.

• Be useful. I wouldn’t mind having this one define me.  I like a nice, long, hot Vitabath Plus bubble-fest with a good book as much as the next person (hmmm, perhaps more?) but it’s not a 24/7/365 gig for the self-respecting.  Be a doer.  I can’t think of a single place on the planet where there’s not more to do than there are hands to do it.  If you see something that needs doing, step up and dive in.  And just in case I’m not making myself clear, I’m not talking abut the stuff you get paid for.  Volunteer.

• Be vigorous. I wanted to use “relentless” but “R” was already taken by the absolutely essential “resilient”.  “Implacable” is another excellent word but “intentional” was essential, too.  So here we are with “vigorous”.  You must be vigorous in your pursuit of your goals.  It’s highly unlikely that you will be handed your dreams come true on a silver platter.  If by some freakish chance you are, hesitate.  Then examine the contents of the platter very carefully.  My guess is that those contents will be bristling with attached strings.  So assume it’s up to you and only you to achieve your goals.  And, just for the sake of attitudinal training, assume that the entire universe will conspire against you, telling you that your goals are impossible or that they’re all wrong for you or that your first failure (of what will be many) is a heaven-sent sign that you should give up the whole thing or that taking a year-long detour of self-indulgence would actually be good for you.  Whatever.  Once you’re mentally prepared to bulldoze right through all that, however many times it takes, for as long as it takes, you should be good to go. 

• Be wonder-full. How on earth can you not be?  Just remember to recognize it as often as possible.

• Be xenophilic.  First, let’s reference the “T” word and be thankful for the Internet for access to Google; for Google that had results for the query “words that begin with ‘x’ and that describe a person”; and for Answers.com that listed “xenophiliac” and defined it as “someone who likes strangers, the opposite of ‘xenophobe’”.  As Will Rogers said, “A stranger is just a friend I haven’t met yet.”  Never close your circle.  Always make room for more friends.

• Be young. Study a child from time to time if you need help with this one.  “I can do it,” is young.  “What’s next?” (in anticipation, not dread) is young.  “Wow!” is young.

• Be zestful.  Go all in about at least one thing and about several things is better.  You have to pick and choose, of course, as you can’t be 100% committed to everything all the time.  But you’ll have a very pale life if you’re 100% tepid about everything all the time.

I omitted the obvious from the list because it’s so basic to me that I forget that it should not go without saying:  Be-lieve.

In faith, hope & love,

Debo