Why I’m Not Cynical

By Vicki Hughes Posted March 27, 2013

cyn·i·cal

[sínnik’l ]

ADJECTIVE

1. distrustful of human nature: doubting or contemptuous of human nature or the motives, goodness, or sincerity of others

Cynical humor is trying to take over comedy, and possibly Earth. I am doing my best to resist it. I cannot deny the fact that there is immense fodder for the cynical cannons, or the fact that it can make you laugh, but buying in really runs contrary to my personal philosophy, which is, “I want to be happy, so I can add happiness to others.”

It’s rather difficult to be cynical and happy at the same time, based on the definition of cynical. I want to feel good about people, and if I distrust them, their motives, their goodness and sincerity, it’s basically impossible to feel good about them.

Individual people, on the whole, surprise me daily with their desire to help others, in spite of their hectic and busy lives. Groups of people, are a different animal all together, and need to be treated with the same caution as say, wild boars, grizzly bears and plastic explosives. But I try to focus on individuals, because in my daily life, I really don’t have to interact with many large groups, but I do have relationships with many individuals.

Ordinary, everyday people do extraordinary things to reach out to those less fortunate, and to add fun and beauty to the world, and make life better for those around them. I grant you, some individuals are jerks, but let’s not let them ruin it for the rest of us, shall we?

I think the main problem is that cynicism has a much better PR department than optimism. Maybe optimists are so optimistic, they don’t think PR matters?

That is why I have to deliberately step away from the media machine, and take it in quite limited doses, because if it were to have it’s way with me, I would simply throw my hands in the air and concede that all is lost.

I assert, all is in fact, not lost. People, in all their flawed weirdness, still long for love, and happiness, and derive joy from making others happy. People sacrifice immensely to provide for their families, take care of their friends and do quality work.

I beseech you to shun the crazy Kool-aid that insists that people are not to be trusted. Some are not trustworthy, but that’s what your brain is for, to discern when something is genuinely fishy. Keep your heart open, believe in people, remember even awesome people can get weird in large groups, and don’t take them too seriously. It helps if you picture them in clown outfits. When they start spouting weird, group-stuff, just remind yourself, they are being intoxicated by the crowd, and if they didn’t have the group standing right behind them, they might not even have an opinion on the subject.

Spend more time with people you love, respect and admire, and less with those who criticize and complain. Look around for someone who needs something you can provide, and then do it. This is your life, spend it wisely. Don’t squander it being mad over something you heard on the news. Make a decision to be happy, and then guard your heart and mind from things that run contrary to feeling good about others. I’m not saying it’s easy, I’m saying it’s worth it.

Mornings, I’m Not a Fan

By Vicki Hughes Posted March 26, 2013

I am not a morning person. Actually I’m a leave-me-alone-in-the-morning person. Firstly, I don’t have the verbal skills or the listening skills prior to a minimum of two cups of coffee to carry on any appreciable conversation. If it’s pre-dawn morning we’re talking about, and we are not leaving on a very exciting vacation, I sound like a grunting grizzly she-bear. It’s best to give me time.

I do most of my writing in the morning, which may seem strange, but I started the habit and I think it works well because I can tap into that creative right-brain more easily when I start out semi-conscious. It’s sort of like how you can figure out how to end world hunger and balance the national budget just as you’re falling asleep, but can never remember in the morning. My semi-conscious brain can get a lot done when I get out of the way. Mornings, in my mind, are very personal. I’m not fit for public display, conversation or anything much, other than shooing the dogs out of my chair as I return from getting a coffee refill.

I’m definitely not a breakfast person. I think it comes from my childhood school anxiety days. I’d wake up, freaked out about going to school, eat a well balanced breakfast, and puke it up at the bus stop. After that became a reliable trend, I was encouraged to have a Carnation Instant Breakfast shake, which I have to admit is much easier to throw up on people’s Keds while waiting for the bus, but won’t win you many friends. Barfing to the smell of school bus diesel fumes is no way to start your day. Momma always worried that I wasn’t getting a nutritious breakfast. But I was, I just couldn’t hold onto it.

In the seventies, California public schools started offering breakfast to kids before school. After scrambled eggs and toast, and Carnation Instant Breakfasts had failed, we tried this new approach. The logic was, maybe I was eating too early. Maybe postponing food till later in the morning, after I got to school would be the solution.

if you have a breakfast-averse stomach, guess what you don’t want to smell on an institutional scale, upon arrival to school, which gives you anxiety? Breakfast. No. Just no.

Looking back, I wish I’d had the foresight to invest all the breakfast money my folks gave me, into something with some decent compound interest. Maybe a nice mutual fund. Unfortunately, I blew it all on Bonnie Bell Lip Smackers, K-Tel Records and candy necklaces at the ball fields on weekends. You live and learn.

I learned not to eat breakfast, or anything more solid than coffee until at least eleven a.m. I barely have the stomach for toothpaste before then, but I power through for you. Coffee breath has to be dealt with. If you and I ever go on a trip together, and we are choosing a hotel, the free Continental breakfast will not sway me. However, you can get my attention with some complimentary wine in the evenings. Just so you know.

Things Don’t “Just Happen”

By Vicki Hughes Posted March 25, 2013

Working in a salon and day spa is a very rewarding and interesting job. A few days ago, I had finished a facial for a new client, and when I finished, I was doing what we call, “turning the room over.” This is the process by which the room is cleaned and prepared for the next guest. Here is a sampling of what that entails: I filed her paperwork, stripped the sheets, took all the used sheets and steam towels to the laundry room, washed and sanitized all the bowls and brushes, grabbed clean sheets and towels, re-dressed the table with sheets and blankets and made the table look inviting, heated up the neck wrap, wiped down all the surfaces and bottles and jars, replaced all the caps and put all the products back in their proper place, laid our a spa wrap, prepped new steam towels (this is code for burning the bejesus out of my fingertips) prep new dry towels, take a deep breath, and compose myself (meaning make sure I am not sweating, and that I don’t look like I just did a fifty yard dash in a windstorm.)

If I am really speedy, and don’t goof off, I might have time to use the potty, or run into the break room and wolf down three bites of the salad I abandoned two hours ago. There’s a lot going on behind the scenes. And I realize this is true of all professions. Whatever you do is harder than it looks, if you’re doing it well.

The teacher who spends hours and hours working on great lesson plans that are over in the classroom in less than forty five minutes. No wonder they get a tad crabby when some kids talk too much or are disruptive to the kids who are trying to pay attention.

The chef who goes in at the crack of ridiculous to inspect the freshness of his ingredients, chop, slice and dice and begin the simmering of the soup, which we we will zip through and grab for lunch. Do we even pause five seconds to appreciate the fact that he drug his butt out of bed in the darkness so we could have a lovely corn chowder for lunch?

The veterinarian who spent almost as much time and money to learn his job as a medical doctor, but who is willing to express our dog’s anal glands and clip their ever growing talons so we don’t have to? And they work with that smell. God bless them, I hope they have grown immune to it the same way I can no longer smell shampoo.

The barista who got up at four a.m. to make her kids lunches, and get them hustled off to the babysitter so she could be there to fix your skinny, Venti, mocha latte with extra sprinkles. Tip that girl! She smiled at you and everything.

The farmer in central Tennessee who had to beat some sense into his tractor with his bare hands, to make sure the harvest got in before the rains came and ruined it all. Without him, your soy latte would be light on the soy.

All day, everyday, countless details are being tended to just to take great care of us, the customer. The people who work so hard, know quite well that we could take our business elsewhere if we decided to. They do amazing things to make the two or three minutes we see them seem “easy.”

Today, take a few minutes to appreciate the seamlessness of good service when you see it. Call a manager over and praise their team. Write a quick email or a note of appreciation on your lunch ticket. Tell a friend if you get great service somewhere. Heck, tell two friends.

One of the best things we could do for the economy is to talk up the businesses that are getting it right. Without them, we’d all be left with crappy service from people who don’t give a rip.

What behind the scenes efforts would people be surprised to learn about jobs you’ve had?

Asshat Thinking-How To Avoid It

By Vicki Hughes Posted March 24, 2013

There is something I like to think of as Asshat Thinking, which we all have to guard against. If we aren’t paying attention, and start participating in Asshat Thinking, we begin to lose our grip on our happy groove. Happy grooves are the sweet spot where we want to spend most of our time, and Asshat Thinking is what drags us away from our happy groove, making us want to either inflict bodily harm on the woman at the drycleaners, or buy a one way ticket to Aruba and leave no forwarding address. Which brings us to Magical Thinking, and I simply can’t go there right now, or I won’t finish this post.

Today, let’s talk about the choreographer of Asshat Thinking: Exaggeration. Out of exaggeration comes an entire flock of Asshat Ideas. Allow me to demonstrate.

Exaggeration is sneaky. It will often start when we are stressed, or tired, sick, and especially when we are running late. It weasels it’s way into our brain, and it usually starts with such innocent sounding banter such as, “Great! I was going to wear these pants today, I’m already late, and they’re covered in dog hair!” Naturally, this leads to, “Dogs have no respect…where is the friggin’ lint roller…somebody has hidden it from me…this day is PISSING ME OFF!” Asshat Thinking has a tiny flair for the dramatic. It needs some Elton John glasses and a feather boa. It tries madly to get and hold our attention.

It will leap from one, small, inconvenient fact (there is dog hair all over the pants I want to wear) and it will catapult it, like digusting, infected body parts, over the castle walls hoping to contaminate all of the castle occupants. I told you, it’s dramatic. As soon as I allow the hairy pants to translate into, “This day is pissing me off!” my bus is now careening over to Asshat Central.

Here’s our dilemma. You like to be right. I like to be right. Everyone likes to be right. Entire wars have been, and continue to be waged, over this one glaringly obvious fact. We all love being right. So what will our brains do for us once we focus on the day pissing us off? It begins scanning the rest of our day for facts to prove us right. The really scary part is, it will also filter out and prevent us from seeing evidence to the contrary.

Suddenly we have our Asshat Glasses on (these do not make us look fabulous, by the way) and all we can see with them are the things that prove our earlier declaration right: Traffic? Sucks! My muffin? Cold and hard. My coffee? Spilled! My job? Impossible! People? Idiots. My life? Stinks.

Did I just manage to create a shit storm of boo frickin’ hoo over pants with dog hair on them? Really? Asshat Thinking is so dramatic, it should have an entry at the Sundance Film Festival. Our brains love Asshat Thinking because it’s nearly effortless, and has a huge following.

It takes a little thoughtful effort to have a different conversation with ourselves in frustrating situations. Deep breath. “Yes, my pants look more like an Angora sweater, but at least they didn’t split at the seams while I was loading a thirty pound bag of dog food in my buggy at the Piggly Wiggly.” To make it up to ourselves, we can make a quick mental list of five things that don’t suck, or if we’re still cranky, just stop and get a frappucinno. Sweet, legally addictive stimulants have improved many a day. Yes, I know I’m not a dog, and shouldn’t reward myself with food, but let’s face facts, I do!

Use some creative distraction, re-focus on something, anything positive or funny. Look at the pants and tell them, “Let’s pretend this didn’t happen.” You give the orders to your brain, so tell it what to look for. Re-decide what you want on your radar, and tell your brain what you want it to keep an eye out for, and get ready, because it will show up.

I’m All Ears

I want to know what you have enjoyed here so far, and what you want MORE of. Wrack your brains, scribble notes (that you may or may not be able to read or find later) or just comment below, and let me know how I can bring you the things you want most from Hell-Bent On Happy.

My heart’s desire is to provide a positive community of people who live in the real world, overcoming real stuff, with practical, fun, uplifting ideas and ways of looking at life. I love encouraging you, and your happiness matters to me!

Happy Sunday…stay frosty. I just learned that. It means “stay cool.” You’re welcome, now you are cooler than you were five seconds ago.

Thanks to All You Early-Birds!

This is a very quick dry run, just checking with the few of you who have signed up as the early-birds for my blog emails

I switched over to a new email provider called MailChimp. God willing, and the creeks don’t rise, you will get these better looking emails whenever I publish something new on the blog. The emails will have all the info. so that you can contact me any old way that flips your wig, via Facebook, Twitter, or just going to the blog at www.hellbentonhappy.com

Hopefully this will simplify things, and make it much easier for you to share stories you like, and it should open up new ways for me to get cool stuff to your in-box. If you have any problems, or questions, just leave me a comment, and I promise to get back to you ASAP.

I hope these doses of Asshat Repellant keep you smiling, and positive in am imperfect world laced with random Asshats!

You guys are the greatest!

Love ya, mean it!

Vicki

Hello!? Pay Attention!

By Vicki Hughes Posted March 23, 2013

Observation is the trick to writing. Noticing the obscure details, and then getting them written down, before they fly away like an eyelash in the wind.

Anne Lammott is one of my favorite authors. When I first read her book Bird by Bird, it changed my life. When she explained that I own what happens to me, a little tumbler on the lock of my writing clicked into place.

Events in my life are what I decide they are, and I’m the only one who can relate it in my perspective. Nobody besides me can see my life through my eyes. If I want you to see what I just saw, I need to write it down, to tell you the story. Paul Harvey used to conclude his radio broadcasts with, “And that’s the way it is.” Writing about our own lives could be footnoted with, “And that’s the way I saw it.”

When a writer writes a story, or shares an insight, all they can give us is their perspective, based on the view they had of the situation. As I’m sure you’re aware, there’s always another side to every story. Just ask a cop who has to write a report on a fender bender. Nobody sees it the same way, from the same angle.

At any given moment, we’re tuned into various parts of our environment. We would never be able to handle the sheer volume of information, if we were taking in all in.

Billions and billions of bits of information surround you right now. You have to choose to stay focused on these words. “Hey! I’m talking here! Pay attention!”

Your brain has to ignore far more details than it pulls into focus, in order for you to to get anything accomplished. There’s no way I could write this sentence while simultaneously focusing on every bit of other information coming at me through my five senses!

Have you ever been laying in bed and suddenly become very aware of your heartbeat? Thumpity thump, thumpity thump. “There it goes again. Again….” Suddenly, you’re counting along, and then wondering, “Is that NORMAL?!”

If you were that aware of your heartbeat, and every blink of your eyes, and every smell in the room, and every place the sheets were touching you, we’d probably have to come after you with a butterfly net. We are blessedly able to tune out a laundry list of input, to enable us to get some other stuff done.

I’m not very useful to myself, or anyone else, if I’m sitting around wondering if my heartbeat is normal or not. I’m not much fun if I’m hissing, “Shhhhh! I’m counting!”

Be glad you have the option to tune into the things you want to. Be okay with the stuff you miss, or sometimes can’t see. We all have our strengths. Most importantly, choose more of the good stuff to pay attention to, because life is short. I’d rather spend it looking at the flowers, than the dog poop.

One Asprin, or Two?

By Vicki Hughes Posted March 22, 2013

Did you know that women are more prone to lie about their height than their weight? I’m not sure it’s intentional, I think it may be due to shrinkage. Maybe we have our height measured at age 21, get our top score, and then gravity slowly begins to screw us over. I mean, really, once they measure you at your high score, you never really think about it again because you don’t expect it to change. It’s like arms. You have two, and you don’t concern yourself with counting them every day to see if you have new ones sprouting. Our height seems to be static, but it’s all a lie!

Unlike our weight, which I am sorry to say has nearly unlimited potential, our height peaks and then begins to decline. For most of my life I have believed I was 5’10”. I’m tall. I’ve always been tall. I am the person who other people expect to change lightbulbs and hand them things off of high shelves. I’m not Women’s NBA tall, but among the women I know, there are very few who make me feel short.

Recently I went in for an annual checkup, which is more like my five year checkup, since I’m a procrastinator. I’ve been on Weight Watchers a little over a year and hovering within five pounds of my goal weight, so for the first time in a long while, the nurse asking me to step on the scale didn’t feel like a mini-execution.

She weighed me and I smiled in quiet smugness. Then she measured my height and said, “Five foot seven and a half.” I thought to myself, “Oh, you are? I’m five-foot-ten.” But then I realized she was writing it in my permanent record! Wait! I‘m not five-foot-seven-and-a-half!

If I am five-foot-seven-and-a-half, that is very bad news for my mom, who peaked at 5’2” sometime in the 1960’s. If gravity is having it’s evil way with her, as it is with me, she’s currently bordering somewhere between pixie and gnome territory.

I have been thinking she looks small to me. Or small-er. She has the metabolism of a hummingbird. When I get a headache, if I ask her for some aspirin, she always asks me, “Do you want one or two?” This prompts me to roll my eyes as I patiently reply, “Two.”

Never has any headache of mine been anything other than amused by one aspirin. I might as well swallow a button for all the relief I’d get from one aspirin.

Newsflash! People who are barely big enough to be allowed in the front seat of a vehicle can take one aspirin, and get relief! It does make sense. I’m sure linebackers for the Green Bay Packers need more than two to get the job done.

Excuse me, I need to get on www.Zappos.com now and buy some heels.

Stupid Brain Tricks

By Vicki Hughes Posted March 21, 2013

My brain seems to be having a few issues. Perhaps it feels a little bit like my outdated laptop when I ask it to do way too many things at one time. It just sort of hiccups and misfires and needs a reboot. (Not Responding)

Last week I noticed it several times while I was showering. I wanted to cool the water off because it was too hot, so I immediately felt compelled to turn the cold water down, thereby scalding myself. Bad hand! I meant colder, not hotter. Do what I mean, not what I say.

A couple nights ago I was trying to communicate with the fan in our bedroom. The spring weather in L.A. (Lower Alabama) means that one day you’re running the heat, and the next day you’re sweltering without the a/c on. I wasn’t about to go to bed without my trusty fan working it’s magic on a warm spring evening.

First, let me tell you, my fan has too many buttons. One turns it on and off, one adjusts the speed from Gnat’s Breath all the way to Hurricane Force, another tells it to oscillate or stand it’s ground, and yet another is a timer. I’ve never used the timer. That button is is dead to me. All I wanted to do was tell the fan to come on, and blow steadily on my glistening self, at a medium speed. I feel that is a reasonable request.

Except my brain kept telling my fingers, “On and oscillate. Nooooo. Wait. Don’t oscillate! Crap. Off. No! I mean ON. Oscillate. Are you kidding me?! You know I meant steady. Wait! What the hell am I doing?! ON. STEADY! STAY RIGHT THERE! Jeeze Louise, it’s hot in here!”

They need therapy for women who talk to electrical components. I can be their leader.

I also like to leave myself cryptic notes, both on scraps of paper, and on my phone calendar. “Get the drfl from C.” I look at it and think…”Drfl, drfl. Dog’s right front leg? Disgusting rat fink letters? Is C for Chelsey or Cyndi at work? Dare I call them and ask them if they know what a drfl is? No. It’s too risky. WHATEVER. If it’s important, someone will yell at me, and I will find a way to survive. Damned drfls.

I have been a little frustrated through the winter, over the disruption to my walking schedule, which I am slowly getting back to. However, I have soothed my guilty conscience with the fact that I walk several miles every day, going into rooms, only to realize I have no idea what I am doing in there. I get a workout huffing it back to wherever I started, hoping I have left myself some hieroglyphics about where I was headed before twelve things happened to interrupt my train of thought.

Check BB. Hey, I know that one. Bank balance. Yesssssss! Fist pump. Now if I can just remember to log on and pay that bill before a squirrel runs by and screws me over completely. Hey….where’s my pen?

Happy Spaces, Happy Faces

By Vicki Hughes Posted March 20, 2013

Fun Fact # 71843

It’s nearly impossible to watch a dog throw up without making your, “that’s-disgusting-face”

Captain Obvious says, “You’re welcome.”

We are hardwired for certain responses. Have you ever seen an entire theater of people jump simultaneously in a startling scene, or drop their jaws in shock? We respond to our environment. Thankfully, there are some pro-active things we can do to improve our environment, to create an atmosphere for feeling good, and staying positive.

Color: Adding some of the colors we love to a space where we spend lots of time can be an immediate mood enhancer. I love blues, and especially periwinkle. I’ve used periwinkle in several of our homes, and it never fails to make me feel good. Let’s face it, the word periwinkle is happy! Interior designer, and lifestyle author, Alexandra Stoddard, shared in several of her books, including Living a Beautiful Life, how, even if we can’t paint an entire room in a favorite color, we can add it to our daily life in creative ways. She’s painted the inside of drawers and cabinets a favorite citron green, so that opening them causes a little gasp of delight. Where could you add a surprising splash of color to give you a boost each day?

Favorite Things: One thing you might as well know about me is that I am not a minimalist. I enjoy my stuff. But I can’t display all of it all of the time, or I’d have the film crew for Hoarder’s knocking on my door.I like to keep a few of my favorite things out in the spaces where I spend lots of time: by my favorite chair, in the kitchen, on my desk, and even pictures of my favorite things and people on my computer desktop and on the lock screen of my phone. These little reminders of who and what I love put a smile on my face, and help to take the sting out of sitting on hold with tech support for twenty-nine minutes, only to get disconnected. Asshats!

Humor: I can’t live without it. I have had a few favorite funnies close at hand for years. I have a tiny framed quote in the kitchen window that says, “No woman ever shot a man while he was doing the dishes.” It makes me smile, and it keeps John on his toes! I recently bought the print I added to this post, from Daddy Sang Bass.This print is now in my kitchen, and each morning it reminds me that I may not have it all figured out, but I can have a cup of Joe, and try to keep a handle on my sense of humor.

Whimsey: Even in a very expensive, professionally decorated home or office, I crave a bit of whimsey. I want to see that the occupants don’t take themselves too seriously. In a room of monochrome decor, that print of the smiling sun gives me a spark of joy.

I once went to a doctor’s office, and above the scale was a poster of Garfield, strangling a scale, screaming, “LIAR!” I dig that.

Anything a little silly or unexpected in an otherwise serious or serene setting catches my eye, and makes me curious and want to know more. I start to wonder, “Who put that here?” Anyone can be boring. It takes a little effort to set the stage for happiness.

Neuroscience is now reporting how the mirror neurons in our brains will automatically prompt us to smile back when someone smiles at us. The longer we look at them smiling, the harder those neurons work. I believe that rooms that smile also have that happiness effect on us. Look around you, and tell me what you can see from where you sit that makes you smile? If you can’t see something, there’s your homework for the day.

Hellbent On Happy

Staying Positive and grateful in an imperfect world laced with random asshats