Prescription for Bliss

Well, I did it.

My site was inaugurated 2 weeks ago. Today, it has a total new face. It went through a major plastic surgery and came out of it looking really swell.

Check it out, sign up for my e-zine, and pass it on to your friends.

This is it for today. It is Halloween, yours truly here had to pretend she was a wicked witch. Just to keep appearances. It was exhausting. I'd much rather be the good witch; always.

I had the privilege to study in the best public school in the city of São Paulo, I am afraid to say, 40 years ago. In fact, at that time, they were called Gymnasium and High School. The first comprised what we call today the 5th to 8th grades, and the High School, from 9th to 11th grade.

High School was also different, for it was divided into 3 categories: Classic (History, Philosophy, Languages, etc.—for the right brain students); Scientific (Physics, Math, Chemistry, etc—for the left brain students), and Normal or Education (for the future elementary teachers). I was a Classic girl. My brother Junior, a Scientific boy.

This said, I need to add, that mine was a public school. To get into the school, we would take a very difficult exam to enter 5th grade, that is, at age 11 or 12. Imagine that. At that time, only those who were average or below average, who didn't pass the exam for public schools, would attend private schools (with a few exceptions).

Being part of that group was the best thing that happened to our lives, for few can boast to have had a better adolescence than we did. Ours was a group of cohesive students who did everything together. We would have different subgroups and we would rotate from one to the next, depending on the activity we fancied at the moment.

My brother and I, inseparable, would go out to parties on the weekends and come back safely at 4 or 5 am. We spent our days going to friends houses either to study or to party. We were never alone. We would go to the theatre, shows, and dances! We knew everyone’s family members and were considered part of many families. Margaret Mead was right: it takes a community to raise children, and ours was an absolutely outstanding one. And all this in this big city that was (and is) São Paulo. Ah… those were the days, my friend; we thought they’d never end.

But when we least expected, these days did end, each of us going to a different university, getting settled, marrying, raising families, and working. Rarely, we would think about our great group of true companions and friends.

Forty years passed. We are now in our mid-50, all of us. A few have left us (my brother being one of the first, I think) and some are spread around the globe—I am one of them. But most of them are still in the city. All of us are living as pleasant a life as we can.

Enter Orkut. Indeed this Age of Information is a great thing. Before Orkut, there was, and still is Skype (www.skype.com), this great program that allows us to communicate via computer to anyone who possesses a computer and a microphone. All without cost.

So here I am one Friday late afternoon, speaking very leisurely with my cousin in São Paulo, when he mentions that there was a community of our school who meets at Orkut and that he recognized some people who belonged to our group. He invited me to enter and in I went.

Man! Talk about surprise! There are many people from our group in that virtual community. I am re-visiting people and getting to know about their lives. We exchange photos of our children; we post old class photos and try to discover who is who, we remember the good old days; we talk about our teachers, principals, counselors, student guardians, janitors… everyone! Some of them are even meeting face-to-face.

This is even better than a High School reunion—a concept that doesn’t exist in Brazil—because we meet everyone, not only our classmates. It has been a fabulous experience. I met some old friends, even a former boyfriend, among others and we took off as if not one day has passed since the great days of "Alberto Conte." And that was 40 years ago. How fantastic is that!

And I get tears to think that, in fact, true love never dies. I loved my friends and they loved me. Life goes on. Beautifully. All we need is love!

Do you know what your values are? Do you know which one is more important to you? Have you ever ranked your values?

Knowing our values is very important and yet, no one teaches us how to do it. Every time I am in traffic, I think of this very point, when I see “Support our Troops” bumper stickers in some cars. Then I start to pay attention and I find a lot of little hints about people’s values, just by reading other stickers and license plates.

Sometimes, I even go to the extreme of quantifying people’s values: how many W’04 I see as opposed to “Don’t blame me, I voted for Kerry,” among many others, of course. It is a fun exercise that tells me how different we all are; and most of all, tell me that these differences are mostly due to our different values.

So, what if you are a patriot and your co-worker isn’t? Or perhaps, you don’t mind white lies while your life-partner can’t tolerate them. I can give you an example that just happened to me. I went to pick up my son at school, and the only place available to park was in a 2-car blue zone. There was a car waiting in that area, not in the spots, but transversally.

Before I parked my car in the next blue space, I told the mother driving the other car that we would have more space to move and park our cars if, instead of parking across, she would park in the blue space that was unoccupied. She was taking “road” space and provoking a little jam in that area. She responded to me in an outraged mode that she would never occupy a blue parking space. Her tone was also asking me: what kind of person are you, anyway? Upon hearing her remark, I asked myself what was the difference between parking in the space or across? She was preventing someone to park there anyway!

Now, mind you that no one, I repeat, not one single person has ever occupied either spot, ever! During my 4 years of daily picking my son up, and attending events and business, and so on, I have never seen a “disabled” license plate in any of the two spots. That means, that I know no one will park there, especially at pick up time, so it matters not if I wait for my son inside my car in that very spot. Granted, it doesn’t matter; the law is the law.

But hey, "authority rests upon reason" or hasn’t anyone heard of "The Little Prince"? If one is inside the car, when and if the need arises, one can immediately remove the car from the place and let the due person occupy the space. In fact, waiting inside the car is not really parking; it is called standing. Anyway. So this is a good example of how we deal with our values.

Now, how we do deal with the people who so much disagree with us either with big issues or one little tiny detail in our daily lives? I have a good exercise that teaches everyone to clarify and rank their values, and hopefully, allow people to understand that it is precisely these differences that make us more interesting. Perhaps, in this way we may learn to tolerate others more easily.

This entry today is all about me. All my life, I have had interesting relationships with family and friends, co-workers, students, acquaintances and people in general. I came to the conclusion that I am unforgettable. Except for those brief encounters with store and bank clerks, for example, or the oil change people, and so on, who will not really notice me except for my accent, everybody else either loves me or hates me.

No one, not one single person who has come in contact with me for more than one day, can boast that they can’t remember me or that I am indifferent to them, or even worse: that they can’t remember me (ouch!).

In Brazil we have a saying that goes like this: "speak well or speak badly of me, but, speak of me!" There might be some equivalent in English, which I don’t recall. Well, it happens to me. I don’t know why that is. Perhaps it is my intensity, perhaps my outspokenness and verbal expression of my likes and dislikes, or perhaps my sensitivity, reflected in my crying for the stupidest reasons. Or perhaps it is by the way I speak, my words, my accent, God knows.

The fact is that the same qualities in me that make me just delightful to some are the same that make me odious to others. There is something in me that triggers laughter in some people and while triggering misunderstand in others. Is that my dry sense of humor? Some people think I am very funny, while some can’t understand me at all. All this, just by my using the same words to the very same people in the very same context at the same time. How is that possible?

This is mostly apparent in my classes. Some of my students have a ball with my way of teaching, while others look at me with a puzzle look that makes me wonder about their intelligence! It is true that humor is a reflection of intelligence.

I have discovered that those who can’t find humor are not the brightest people. In any case, I am not saying that those who don’t love me are dumb. I think perhaps the best way to describe those who love me is by acknowledging their high sense of self-esteem and self-confidence. That’s it!

But then, I know some people who dislike me and are ok in this department. I think I might trigger in them responses to some of the qualities that they possess but don’t like. You know, there are some people we don’t like and when we decide to investigate the reasons for our disliking them, we find out that we have the same qualities that they do, except that we don’t like to have them. Anyway. There are many possibilities to continue this speculation. I will think of some more.

The question remains: would I want to be loved by everyone? Certainly. Loud YES! Wouldn’t it be great? But I need to recognize that we are all different people with different personalities and set of values. This will remain a wishful thinking. Hey, dreaming is good!

Now, if only the ones who love me were more vocal than the few ones who don’t…

This is a very brief entry just to say that I am very excited that my website is finally online. Go check it out and let me know what you think. I need all the feedback I can get. And, while you are at it, sign up for my short and fun e-zine (which for those who don't know yet is an e-mail newsletter). When you do that, you will get a 3-part Values Clarification course (no charge, of course). Find out why learning about your values is important for your happiness.

The address is: http://www.rx4bliss.com
I am thrilled!
This is a great day!
See you there!

This thought kept churning in my head, and then it dawned on me the truth of my reality, our contemporary reality. The problem we are facing today, more than ever is that we lost the awareness that happiness and fulfillment as well as unhappiness and divorce are truly a woman’s doing. In other words, a relationship can be happy or lasting. If it is happy (no matter low long it lasts), it is because of the woman. If, on the other hand, it is lasting but unhappy, it is the man’s doing: he just puts up with his woman’s demands. That is all. Let me repeat: happy relationship equals women's responsibility; unhappy but lasting relationships equals men's responsiblity. Let me be clear, here. Of course, there are many instances where happiness is a product of both husband and wife's work of love, but what you see around is that this instance is more of the exception than the rule.

I know I may be attacked by many when I say this, but I truly believe that, once a man is committed to a relationship, only in his spouse (or whatever you call us: partners, significant others, wives, fiancées, girlfriends, etc.) lies the responsibility to keep the relationship or to make it a happy one. Think about this. You can ask any man and he will tell you that he will do anything to please his spouse. Anything! Can women say the same thing? I can’t, and I am but one in this vast ocean of demanding women in our Western culture.

It is my belief that it is the woman who drives her man away. Women have so many expectations that have no basis whatsoever that, when these expectations are not met, which will inevitably happen, they start a series of bitching and provocations that will eventually destroy their relationship, or at least, make it unbearable.

So, I started to write the book, scolding women for provoking chaos and unhappiness. I wanted to support men, the regular guy, the average Joe. I wanted to make sure my readers understood that, as an author and a woman, I had no agenda other than honoring ordinary, hard-working, good men. I had no intention to discuss any group in particular, be it criminals, conservatives, liberals, gays, anti-feminists, pro-feminists, movie stars, politicians, rappers, jocks, rapists, etc. Also, I had no intention to make of this book an academic essay, though coming from academia, I find it a rather difficult task. And, at present, I still don’t have any of these intentions.

But, along the way, I had an epiphany. No, it was not an epiphany: I was told blatantly to leave men in peace and not meddle in their affairs. I, who was only trying to help them, was cast away. They thought that only they can redeem themselves. So be it. With the tail between my legs, I stopped trying to be their “princess in armor,” and, not at all discouraged, I decided to change my whole approach. I turned my book into a woman’s book, so she can understand who she is dealing with. You will have a chance of reading it, whether you are a man or a woman. I am sure it will resonate some with you.

What you are going to read is my way of healing the wounds and injuries that I (as well as many women my generation and beyond) have inflicted or are inflicting upon our fellow male companions during what should be a delightful journey on this earth but which, more often than not, is just a plain nightmarish voyage.

I will let you know when it comes out. If nothing, you will be entertained.

My son Alex learned about the world of women came from slow indoctrination, based mostly on situations derived from films and not real life. I am at fault, for, by abstaining of having one, I prevented him to learn about true relationships between a man and a woman. Films were my tools, for I believe that art imitates life, except that in movies people always find a convenient parking spot.

As we sat together to watch movies, I taught him how to deal with situations regarding romantic relationships. Comments such: when you have a quarrel and the woman says: “go away, I will never want to see you again,” what she means is perhaps: “please, stay and show me you love me.” Of course, those teachings are never factual, for one never knows what passes through a woman’s head, really; not even us. Women are emotional beings, everyone knows that.

This is nothing new. And, of course, men know this very well, too. This is just one example of many situations that happen in real life between men and women. In any case, based on this type of situations I taught my son to behave in relationships with women. Of course, he learned through my own experience, through the eyes of an overly emotional, albeit strong, woman; Theory is not practice, however, and God knows what will happen when he will be faced with a real life situation.

But, as I was saying, Alex is now a young man, and despite all my preaching, I see in him the characteristics of all the men I have ever known: father, brothers, relatives, friends, lovers, preachers, teachers, and general acquaintances. There is no denying; he has the male blueprint. Testosterone. Boy will be boys; men are men. Now, how bad is this, you may ask?

From the standpoint of a feminist, this is absolutely unacceptable. I would not be caught dead living with a guy like this, though he is a sensitive, right-brain kind of a guy. Our compatibility is striking. So why would I have problems living with a man like my son, totally compatible with me, a very nice men, to put it mildly, understanding and sensitive to women’s issues, loving and caring, helpful and friendly, expressive in his love and attentive, intelligent and funny, considerate and just, artistic and philosophical… you got the picture, in sum, a real dream man?

Is it because I have to ask him several times to please, take the garbage out or, could you please, for once, find what you are looking for without requesting my help, or, aren’t you going to comb your hair today? What stupid reasons are those? And then I asked myself: what kind of a woman am I? What is wrong with me? Can’t I understand and accept men as they are? And how many millions of women are just like me, even to a lesser extent; women who are making their men’s lives so utterly miserable? So, then, I kept thinking: Heck! If Alex gets a woman like me, he will be in big trouble. I need to wake him up for what is really happening today regarding relationships… to be continued

I have a confession to make. Regarding my love relationships, I used to be a bitch; one of those really nasty feminists that see men as the enemy or if not that extreme, simply good for nothing. Actually, I always thought men were very good for opening jars and changing light bulbs. That is all.

I used to fantasize about how to deal with men: my greatest fantasy was to use them for pleasure or procreation and then kill them, just like black spiders. Or use them and zap them to somewhere else in the universe where they were not to be heard or seen, ever. Beam them up, Scotty! Or, in another version, that we women would all live in a place separate from all men and then, coming pleasure time, choose between the ones who attracted us the most and use them and then send them away again.

Let them testosteronize away—good verb, huh?—and make their wars and leave us alone, I used to broadcast. We, women, would all be fat and happy. We would wear what pleased us the most and eat whatever we desired, especially chocolate, at any time we pleased, not thinking once that our bodies were not attractive for “them.” Who cares? Ahhhhhhhh, a life of freedom. What a dream that was! Because of that, I drove away a score of men, all very good, until only the “bad” guys remained.

Pity. So here I am now… 54 years old. Fruit of the Women’s Lib movement. Divorced twice. Successful. Brazilian. Over educated. Single Mother. Former feminist: never wore a bra! Former male-basher, of course – please, send me those funny jokes degrading men. As a professor, I was once accused of being a man-hater by a student. Too true; though I thought this comment was not only unkind but absolutely false as well. I guess my transparency couldn’t be helped.

My two marriages were simply a disaster. I had no tolerance or appreciation for men in general, husbands in particular. Nothing that my husbands ever did was good enough for me, including sex. Though I loved them, living with those men was just impossible then, as living with a man would be now, had I the guts to get into any romantic attachment again. But, as the saying goes, I don’t hate men this much to impose such an ordeal upon them. I am not cut out for this. Never was, though I used to think so; never will be.

So one day I was inspired to write a book, one that would show the men’s side of the truth in relationships. But, why this change of heart? What happened in my life for me to change my views on the topic? I can only think of one reason: my son Alex. You see, Alex is at present almost 17 years old. He is becoming a man. As his sole influential parent, I like to think that I instilled in him good habits in what concerns women and his relationship with them. I probably damaged him as well, for his female role model is a very strong woman… former goddess; now an aspiring crone. He has a lot to tell his shrink in the future, I am sure. But that is his story… to be continued.

I have 5 degrees. Yes, you read it right. It certainly makes me feel very educated but not wiser or richer than the next high school dropout. I know of many people who did very badly in school and still have the greatest common sense and/or great wealth. However, a higher education is one of the greatest assets a person has and so, everyone should strive to have a college degree.

I think college courses are very important, specially the ones belonging to general education. Those are the ones that will prevent us from being skewed in our education and hence, deal only with engineering or chemistry or history. A complete education must require that all students have a round and complete body of knowledge.

Most students hate to take the GE courses; they think it is a waste of time. I say that it this set of courses that will make everyone know a little of everything and give rise to a hidden talent or at least make one knowledgeable enough to carry a conversation in some cocktail party. One never knows when we will be required to talk about philosophy or Russian literature. God forbid we have nothing to say!

Among the great basic courses that every college offers for its GE program, there are 3 that should be mandatory: Ethnic Studies or Diversity; Finances, and Marketing. The anthropological aspects of our different racial and ethnic make-up are of great importance, especially nowadays, in this global world of ours. One must learn that everyone single one of us, regardless of our religion, background, social economic status, race, ethnicity, marital status, etc., have three basic needs in life: we want to be healthy, wealthy, and happy. We all want our relationships to be loving and harmonious; we all have a sense a humor and laugh at the laughable; we all applaud the beautiful or the moving. We are also all one, interconnected in this web of life.

Learning about Finances is a must for those who want to survive in the global world. Our students are leaving high school and college without the basics of making a budget, balancing a checkbook, knowing about the risks of credit cards, or knowing how to use and invest money to be able to retire at a decent age with a decent income. I know all of this only very well.

Finally, marketing, being the great art of bullshitting, is perhaps the most important of them all. We are constantly selling, even though we think we are not; even though we despise the activity or we think we are not good at it. We sell our ideas or our justifications to our superiors, we sell our values to our relations; we sell our wants and needs to those who can fulfill them; not to mention our selling of ourselves. Who has not gone through some interview and had to sell yourself to get the job? Who has not barter in life, giving something to get something back?

Of course, there are other bodies of knowledge that one must possess to have a balanced lifestyle, but let’s talk about them some other time.

What is the Prosperity Game? As the name says, it is a game which aims primarily at increasing your wealth thermostat so you can attract and feel comfortable using more and more money, and, by focusing on the subject, you end up accepting more of it into your life. The idea is very simple. Remember your home thermostat: it works by default. Harv Eker --http://www.millionairemind.com/-- says that when you have your thermostat at 72 degrees, no matter how hot or how cold the temperature is outside, it will always compensate to increase or decrease the inside temperature to keep it at 72. The same happens with money.

Our major example is the lottery: suddenly people make millions of dollars only to lose everything down the road. Why? Because their money thermostat is much lower, and hence, by default, it has to come down. On the other hand, you also have the millionaires who suddenly lose everything and soon later, become millionaires again. Guess why?

So the Prosperity Game was created. There are many versions, but I recommend The Prosperity Partnership-- http://www.choosingprosperity.com/game/, though I like the older version better for it is less limiting. Now, you may ask: Why do I want to increase my money thermostat and be more prosperous, more abundant? And my answer is very simple: Why not? Money may not bring happiness, but wouldn’t you rather be depressed sitting by your pool in your beautiful and comfortable home, in which garage sits your fantastic new car?

Anyway. Before I found out about these games, I had been playing my very own version. It goes like this: I am driving or doing something where I am absolute captive of my space and time, taking the shower, for example. There is no escape for my thoughts and they better be good ones. So, I imagine having great wealth. In fact, I imagine having an unlimited amount of money. Then I start by distributing my money to the people who have helped me financially in the many stages of my life when my thermostat was really low. They will be refunded 10 fold. I figure this is a good amount. So, for example, my cousins gave me $500 once. I will give them $5000; my son’s school helped his education with tuition assistance. They will get about $200000; and son on.

Next, come the members of my family and my close friends. My sister-in-law Sonia will get an apartment at her favorite beach. She loves the beach and is a sun worshiper. My sister Cora will get a beautiful furnished apartment close to her work. She also gets a laser surgery to get rid of those thick glasses. My brother Alex will get a weekend, fantastic home in the country. And so on and so forth.

Last—or first, it matters not—come my favorite philanthropic dreams: I will buy a huge piece of land and make lovely homes and send all the homeless people who want to relocate to the place. Each family gets a furnished home. I will then create some type of activity where they can exploit their talents and make money doing what they love. I also will create two associations to help women, one of them building a place where single mothers in welfare may go to work and while there are cared for, in the same building. There will be a beautiful area for nursery etc and the mothers will be sewing fabric bags and purses (among other things) to make some money. They will all have free lunch and snacks before they are bused home. The other one is my animal sanctuary, where I will rescue all the neglect animals and have them live in peace and health for the rest of their days. I will have at least one horse that will never be mounted and a calf that will wean naturally. My chickens will run free and every animal will have its space to roam free. I now need to think how I am going to separate the predators from the other animals.

And on my imagination goes. Of course, I make sure that I attach a certain figure to each of my projects, just so the game has a more specific value. This is a great game and I invite you to play it as often as you wish. It is absolutely liberating and makes me feel fantastic. Try it.

Last note: I play the game on myself and my son as well. And we always come first, as it should be. Have fun!