Improving My Life

I'm trying to figure out the idea that everything is for the best.

Because, well, obviously not everything is for the best. You lose your job, for example. Then you don't have the money for the mortgage. You lose your house. You lose your dreams for a comfortable future.

And then you meet someone who smiles and tells you it's all for the best.

Nothing as horrible as this has happened to me, but every once in a while, when something big or small doesn't go according to plan, I think, What if it's all for the best? And then comes the test: What if something really bad happens--will things still be for the best?

Some people subscribe to a religion that tells them it's all from God. Others believe events happen because they were meant to happen, and it's not in our interest to find a reason on Earth or above.

I think what connects the true believers (religious belief or otherwise), is the idea that if something bad happens to them, that doesn't mean it's bad in the big picture.

That involves a certain amount of humility. If I lose my job, it's not good for me, but it's great for the person who was hired instead. If I lose my house, I might join a great number of people who had lost their houses, and our numbers may move politicians to regulate the mortgage industry.

Not everything is a zero-sum game in the world. Not every loss is someone else's gain. But if I truly believe in the world, then I must take a step back when I look at my own setbacks.

Last month I've managed to cross out another one of my goals, when I finally met a person I met online. A blogger.

By definition (at least it should be a part of the definition), bloggers who have online friends still mostly keep to themselves in real life. I do believe most are introverts who usually enjoy virtual friendship even more than real one.

But I was curious, so when she mentioned a gathering of some bloggers I took her up on it.

On the one hand, it was indeed as awkward as I'd imagined it would be. It's rare that I walk among others and don't feel like an outsider. And even here, among my people, I felt the same.

But this is still a crossed out goal I'm glad I did, and now I've created a new goal: meet an online friend from a different state or a different country.

Because as much as I felt awkward, I also felt better than I do when I'm in a bar with non-blogger. The truth and honesty of virtual friendship remained, which is a very rare thing in most gatherings. Online friends are special friends. You don't even count them when someone asks you how many friends you have. But they're as real as all of your other friends, which was something I had to prove to myself.

One of the goals I set in my list of 101 goals was to leave Bank of America. We've finally made up our minds to do that and to move our checking account to a credit union.

It's just been to easy. They have online banking... And so many branches... But enough. If I believe in myself and in this country, I have to do what's right.

When I think of the most horrible companies in the US, Bank of America is not alone. There's Blackwater, and Wal-Mart, and Haliburton, and a few others. But while these other companies set their goals and don't care how many people they destroy on the way, the business of Bank of America is to destroy people.

The family is going on a vacation. When we come back, I hope I'll be able to fulfill this particular goal. Good luck.

One day, I looked at a friend of mine and realized what was wrong.

She was bitter. She was constantly fighting with her husband, who was playing in a band and trying to become a rock star. She was watching TV for hours, not even knowing what she was watching anymore. Gaining weight. She was in her mid-20s, babysitting for a living.

Now, I'm not saying depression isn't real. I'm just saying we can do something about it.

When I looked at my friend, I didn't see a spark in her eyes. People around her were moving forward, while she stayed in one spot.

We all need to find the spark in our eyes. It's what keeps us alive.

Do something. Change your circumstances. You don't know what your next move should be? Ask around. Be brave. That spark is there, waiting for you to make a single move. It will take over from there.

Eventually, one day, my friend woke up. Just like that, she enrolled in a Montessori school teacher class. And once the spark was there, she didn't let go. She didn't apply to work as a Montessori teacher--instead, she opened her own school. She has sixty kids in her school now, and it's still growing. The wait list is over a year long.

The spark she had hidden in her eyes was bigger and brighter than everyone else's, but to find it, she had to wake up and make that change.

A couple of months ago I got out of my local Dunkin' Donuts and headed back to the car, when a friendly WJZ reporter stuck a mike in my face and asked if there was anything I didn't need but was still going to buy during the recession. The answer was obvious: my morning donut.

I don't know if they ended up using my answer in the report, but if I had more time to think, I would have given a longer answer.

It would have included a long explanation about the way sugar calmed me down, even though I was sure it also made me more jumpy and stressed. I would have said that in better times I would have spent my money on a gym membership, not on donuts, and that the donuts were just there to fill me up physically and mentally, because as long as I could taste the sweet chocolate, no one could fool me into thinking things were that bad, right?

Instead, I smiled, pointed at my donuts, and walked to my car.