Are You Fun to Live With? That book title caught my eye in a bookstore one day back in the '70's. I couldn't afford to buy the book at the time, but the question stuck with me and became a guideline for my life.
My father, an insurance salesman, came home from seminars preaching PMA -- Positive Mental Attitude -- to us when we were children. We were always encouraged -- by word and by example --to live life with enthusiasm! Ask my dad how he was -- or is, even today at age 84 -- and you get a vibrant "Tremendous!" as your answer, no matter what might be aching somewhere inside.
I have always believed that happiness is a choice. We can choose it, create it, live it. "You are as happy as you want to be, " Abe Lincoln is alleged to have said.
My most interesting interview for Survivor included a discussion on this subject with Mark Burnett, whom I came to respect because of his perceptive questions and responses in our conversation (in a room where a dozen interviewers, most unknown to me, faced the lone Survivor contestant). Referring to my bio and some of the hard times in my life, Mark asked how I handled difficulties and disappointments. I said I always kept my spirits up and was optimistic and positive. Mark asked pointedly how I reacted when people wronged me. I replied that I believe in forgiving --that forgiveness is a choice, just like happiness, and that we can't be happy if we don't forgive.
Mark challenged: "So you just keep forgiving, and you'll let someone walk all over you because you forgive. In other words, you enable." I paused and then responded, "Yes, you have a point. I enable. What someone else does to me is for someone else's conscience to deal with. I am responsible for my own happiness. Not to forgive is to allow the worm of bitterness a space to crawl. So yes, I forgive, and keep forgiving. Always. Right or wrong, forgiving is my choice." I choose to forgive, and I choose to be an optimistic and positive person. There might not be a million dollars in that, but there's happiness and peace of mind.
That being said -- I return to the concept of being fun to live with. People can be fun in different ways. Some are quietly cheerful, thoughtful, and caring. Others bring fun to their friends and family and to their own lives by sometimes being a little wacky.
George and I enjoy the kind of silliness that is based not on stupidity but on simple pleasures and active participation in whatever opportunities are available for fun. Donkey basketball? I'll play! 5K? I'll run! Adventure with a little risk? I'm game! Whether it's a minor adventure like whitewater rafting or parasailing or just living on the edge somewhere outdoors, or whether it's creating and wearing an outlandish costume, writing and singing a funny song, or being willing to be embarrassed by trying a silly stunt or game, I'll take the risk and hope that it adds some smiles to our days.
I feel sorry for the "stuffed shirts" and "snooty noses" who snort, "Annoying!" to the simple things that can be so much fun. Off the couch, out the door, onto the stage -- I never need drugs to get high on life! Fun, here I come!