In the end, all that is left of any of us are the memories in those we touched.
As they say, no one will every say, ” I wish I worked more,” or “My only regret is that I didn’t have a better car.”
5 Rules for a Happy Marriage
I am now the father of two married sons.
Until last week, I was the father of one married son and one engaged son. Last weekend, the elder Marcus and his fiancée exchanged vows at a lovely ceremony filled with joy, laughter and happy tears (most of which were mine). Toasts were made. Shouts of “mazel tov” rang from the ceiling. Well wishes were abundant. I’m sure they’re going to do really well.
However, that’s not the case for so many. As I learned many years ago,
“Fifty percent of all marriages end in divorce. Of those that remain, 90 percent end in boredom. If you want to be the five percent that stay happy, it’s going to take some work.”
To that end, I’ve looked back on over two decades of being in a happy, supportive marriage with my lovely, talented, creative (very patient) wife and I pass along my own take on how to stay married – and happy – over the long term.
Rule #1: Love your partner for who she is today, not whom you think you can make her into “down the road.”
Assume she is as good a partner as she’ll ever be RIGHT NOW. Don’t believe that living together will make her “come around” to your thinking. If she has what you consider annoying traits, don’t make the blunder of thinking how you’ll change them after you’re married. Accept her as she is; not who you’ll think she’ll be. If she’s not who you desire now, she sure as heck won’t be later.
Rule #2: Realize that there are three — not two — entities in your relationship.
Weight Loss Surgery Connection to Suicide?
At the bottom of the television screen, during virtually every newscast, there is now a crawling parade of headlines informing us of everything from the latest world disasters to which celebrity is hooking up with whom.
Recently, one story caught my eye: “Weight loss surgery connected to increased risk of suicide.”
One might assume this to be counterintuitive, reasoning that if someone’s lifestyle was so unhealthy that he underwent successful major surgery to change it, he would be so relieved with the outcome, that the resulting emotions would be happiness; possibly even jubilation.
Yet dig deeper.
First, the details; according to a study, troubled individuals were about 50 percent more likely to try to take their own lives after they lost a lot of weight with surgery.
“While we are clear and confident about the medical benefits of weight loss, especially through weight-loss surgery, I think we’re not as attentive to the potential psychological benefits or harms of it,”
said Dr. Amir Ghaferi, director of bariatric surgery at the Ann Arbor Veterans Administration Healthcare System in Michigan.
Some of the correlation might be obvious.
Please Set Cell Phone to “Nag”
There is a fine line between inquiring with concern how you might assist someone in her diet efforts; and braying persistent, repetitive, noisy, constant, loud-mouthed inquiries as to whether she knows what the heck she is doing.
The former is labeled “being supportive,” the latter referred to as “nagging.”
As examples, supportive is gently and sincerely asking, “How can I help you with your diet?” Nagging is, “How’s that diet working? Should you be eating that? Wow! How many calories in that? Haven’t you had enough?”
Although well intended; polite support might still carry the risk that the answer is, “leave me alone.” However, it is a slam-dunk assurance that a series of harassing, pushy questions blasted in Gatling gun point-blank, rapid-fire succession promises one will receive that same reply, albeit with exclamation points and several choice expletives spicing up the retort.
Supportive infers the receiver knows what to do, but might periodically need assistance.
(Don’t we all?) Nagging implies he is an incompetent, ignorant, bumbling boob — adrift without constant instruction; and since pushing someone who desires no assistance (rightly or wrongly) is a guarantee that the end result will be no place fun; might as well avoid the journey completely.
However, if requested — and therein lies the rub — nagging might have value, or so believes a website whose goal is to keep one on the straight and narrow. Requiring nothing more than a cell phone, internet connection, and a willingness to be annoyed from afar, it can send text message reminders to keep you on task.
Deciding to inspect further, I created a profile.
“How much do you weigh?” queried the on-line form.
This presents obstacle one; do I answer honestly? Even the DMV thinks I weigh 147 pounds; must I now confess to a nameless society of cyber-food-cops my most personal number? On the other hand, I am requesting guidance; if I “creatively address” the issue, recording a more complimentary weight, it might not assist me. Already, the stress is enough to cause me to eat. Brushing fear aside, I bravely answer with truthfulness: “185 pounds.”
“What would you like to accomplish?” asks the questionnaire.
Uh, duh. From the pull down menu, I select “Lose Weight.” [Read more…]
Lessons in Patience from the World’s Slowest Pedestrian
I’m impatient, tense, and in a frenzy as I pull up to the intersection to turn right.
The light’s green but because a meandering male pedestrian is wandering unhurriedly across the crosswalk on the street to which I’m trying to turn, I’m stalled.
He’s quite the eyeful; forty and short – maybe five and a half feet tall, with a hobbit-type potbelly.
His brown hair is a bird nest of a toupee with the crown not even pretending to match the temples. He’s adorned in a garish, undersized, well-worn, striped, algae-greenish, polyester sports coat that doesn’t fit him — or the current decade. His trousers are twisted so his fly doesn’t line up with his belt buckle. Neither is aligned with the center of his body, each wrenched askew in a different direction. The waist of his pants is pulled up so high, resulting in the pant-legs being too short, exposing his calves well above his socks. (As a kid, we called those, “high waters” because if there were a flood, you wouldn’t get your pants wet.) Pants, grey; shoes, maroon; socks yellow — he obviously did not have a wife to help him choose his clothes.
Wrapped within his short arms that the sport coat’s sleeves do not cover, pressed to his chest, are too many files in too few folders. While navigating the crosswalk, he’s trying to prevent the papers from sliding out of the packets on to the ground, causing his hands to be constantly in motion, sliding hither and yon across them. Further complicating this maneuver, is his Styrofoam cup full of coffee held at a dangerously perilous angle. With each step, the brown liquid sloshes over the brim of the cup, splashing him and his documents. It’s clearly hot because when it makes contact, he winces.
To top it off, he’s slower than a sloth.
Granted, if I wasn’t so stressed, it might not have bothered me. After all, it was almost like observing the offspring of a gnome and a businessman, and how often does one see that?