Lemons or Lemonade?

Lemons are thrown at us left and right. If you watch the news for a few minutes it makes you sad what is happening in America.  Today I chose to make lemonade and focus on happiness and the ongoing search for contentment.

I am generally a glass half full person (some would say very full…) individual.  I look for the good in most situations.  I strongly believe kindness is currency.  I also understand we ALL live through many of the same life challenges and the curveballs thrown our way.  Deaths, addiction struggles, health issues, divorce and separations, family struggles, raising kids (that is a whole topic itself), caring for aging parents, job struggles, financial worries, the list goes on.  We all have faced or will face many, if not most of these. So how do we stay positive?

My first answer is to be thankful for what you have.  If you have ever traveled to a third-world country, you really appreciate the lives that we live here in America, even with all the political noise.  Thus, my more thoughtful answer is not as flippant.  It takes many levers to increase the happiness factor in your life.  Getting rid of the negatives, serving others, living in the present, being healthy, appreciating the small things, and simplifying your life is a good place to start. 

Let’s start with your current negatives…. A good place to start is by looking at who you surround yourself with.  If you want to be more positive, surround yourself with positive energy and positive people.  Seek out and grow the positive relationships that you already have.  Pull away from the negative influences in your life.  Negativity is a contagious disease, so try to stay away.  Choose carefully whom you let into your life. Surround yourself with positive people who bring you up and only want the best for you and themselves.  As we saw on Saturday Night Live, we all know a “Debbie Downer” in our life (wah, wah).

Another way to increase your happiness is to serve others.  I had a discussion the other day with a young man facing a serious medical challenge.  We were discussing how sad he was and how he was having trouble being positive.  I asked him if he could find time to do nice things for others.  Not focusing on his happiness, but instead making others happy.  Treating everyone with kindness, or participating in random acts of kindness. Not only does it help others to feel better, but you will notice that you too feel good after having a positive interaction with others. Be careful with your words. Speak gentler, kinder, and wiser.  Practice generosity and giving without expecting anything in return. Get involved with service opportunities and offer what you can to a greater cause.  Helping others will help your self-confidence, give you a sense of worth and make you feel included.

Living in the present will help you keep focus on things under your control.  Try not to replay negative things that have happened in the past.  They have happened – you cannot change them.  Observe yourself in the moment. Observe how YOU choose to react to changes or challenges.  Nobody determines your mood but yourself.  Work on your reactions to circumstances outside your locus of control and learn how to approach life harmoniously. You can learn from your past experiences, but your mistakes do not define you. It takes practice, but it will take time.  Letting go gives you freedom. Your bad choices do not define who you are. It’s how we choose to deal with the negative things in our lives that make us who we are. 

Do not underestimate the value of living healthy.  Do you wake up the same time every day?  Do you have some form of exercise on a regular basis?  Do you sleep enough?  Interesting fact – for every 60 minutes of tv you watch, you decrease your life expectancy by 22 minutes.  Do you eat balanced meals?  Do you laugh?  Laughter is wonderful medicine for the soul.  Happiness for any length of time requires maintenance. Keep doing things that bring you joy. Keep pushing away negative thoughts.  Your priorities change, your interests fade and many of your relationships will go through changes. In each season of life, work to maintain happiness.

Finally, learn (or relearn) to appreciate the small things.  Remember how cool butterflies were when you were younger?  Get excited about everyday things. You can find something to be happy about every day: getting a drink with a friend, your favorite song playing on the radio (In the Air Tonight drum solo anyone?), eating a piece of chocolate cake (that does make me happy), spending time with family (hitting a favorite sporting event with one of my sons) or getting a compliment from a peer.

Some things that I personally try to do are: forgive quickly, look at obstacles as challenges, appreciate what you have {and redefine the definition of “have” as a great family, a lovely spouse, cool parents – not a big car, a fancy mansion, Christian Louboutin shoes, or a Rolex watch}.  Set big goals and small goals and be optimistic about achieving them.  Learn to embrace failures as life lessons, laugh at your mistakes {learn, but laugh}, spend energy only on the things you CAN control {challenge - make a list today about all you worry about and then go back and cross off all those you have no control over}, do not take life too seriously, and most of all you have to accept yourself and all your flaws.  Embrace these flaws. Yep, my Dad bod, my color blindness, my lack of musical talent, my inability to understand travel directions, my lack of any sort of a beard, my aging basketball game….  It is what it is.

I want to leave you with this, William Shakespeare said, “Expectation is the root of all heartache.” Things happen in life that you cannot control.  Ask yourself what makes you happy, and find ways to restructure your life so that you are able to do more of those things.  Surround yourself with positive people.  Make others happy {which will make you happy}.  Give more.  Worry less.

Together.  We.  Win.

Dave Harmon
People Division
“Kindness is Currency”
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/davidharmonhr

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Where is the love?

I sat, like many of us, this past weekend watching the horror (and I use that word purposefully since I think the American public is becoming callous to violence) unfold in Pittsburgh at the Tree of Life Synagogue.  Eleven people lost their lives in a sacred place of worship.  Joyce Fienberg, Richard Gottfried, Rose Mallinger, Jerry Rabinowitz, Cecil Rosenthal, David Rosenthal, Bernice Simon, Sylvan Simon, Daniel Stein, Melvin Wax,  and Irving Younger all lost their lives.  Please read those names again.  They could be our brothers, mothers, aunts or grandfathers.  

Pittsburgh PA, Columbia TN, Las Vegas NV, Robstown TX, Wilmington DE, Trenton NJ, Santa Fe TX, Parkland FL, and many more.  Cities with tragic mass killings.  And do not forget the daily violence that plagues many of our major metropolitan areas (and also smaller cities).  The United States is a society where an unusual number of people die violently, at least in comparison to other rich, capitalist democracies.  The U.S. has the 31st highest rate in the world: 3.85 deaths due to gun violence per 100,000 people in 2016. That was eight times higher than the rate in Canada, which had .48 deaths per 100,000 people — and 27 times higher than the one in Denmark, which had .14 deaths per 100,000 in 2016.  The U.S. gun violence death rate is also higher than nearly all countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including many that are among the world's poorest (NPR).  One more way to consider this data: The IHME also estimates what it would expect a country's rate of gun violence deaths to be based solely on its socioeconomic status. By that measure, the U.S. should only be seeing .79 deaths per 100,000 people — almost five times less than its actual rate of 3.85 deaths per 100,000.

Let me take it from statistic to reality really quick, “I will only become a statistic. I will never be able to go to college. My dog will always wonder where I went. I will become a hashtag. I will never be able to fight for my life again. Please don’t let gun violence continue,” Colorado high school student Presley Leland wrote.  An analysis of school shootings in the past two decades by The Washington Post has found that more than 214,000 students in America have been affected by gun violence at school.

Our famed cities of Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, New Orleans, Baltimore and St Louis experience hundreds of murders each year.  The upward trend in the national murder rate is attributed to sharp increases in crime in a handful of American cities. In Chicago, for example, the murder rate nearly doubled between 2014 and 2016. Milwaukee and Louisville, Kentucky, saw comparable spikes.

I am not pro or anti guns, but here are some facts: American civilians own at least 265 million firearms, which gives Americans the highest rate of per capita firearm ownership in the world, with about one gun for every American.   For a reference, Yemen comes in a distant second, with about 55 guns for every 100 people, according to data from the Small Arms Survey.  These surveys also show that gun ownership in America is actually highly concentrated with only 22% to 31% of American adults saying they personally own a gun.  Just 3% of American adults own a collective 133 million firearms – half of America’s total gun stock. These owners have collections that range from 8 to 140 guns, the 2015 study found. Their average collection: 17 guns each.

With the escalation of American violence, it is easy to blame the vast availability of guns as the culprit.  We could debate forever about whether this issue is about the guns, but that is not my point today – my point is it is about us - the people.  The answer is not about just the access to guns.  In my opinion, that is just a part.  Although gun availability is undoubtedly a major contributing factor, sadly these issues are becoming increasingly reduced to empty, emotional rhetoric and rallying cries for our politicians on all sides versus trying to find resolution that works for both sides. Given the history of these issues, and particularly gun control in America, it is unlikely they will be settled anytime soon. But we should ask ourselves what brings people to the point where they are shooting innocent people in schools, malls, concerts and places of worship? We are killing children and the elderly.  It is every day.  Every day.

It may make more sense to move past the polarizing issue of gun control and instead focus our discussion on an actual solution that can work for all of us – one that both sides of the aisle can agree upon. We need to focus on core values of America – our parenting, education of our kids, messaging from the media, our films & music, and leadership in our country (schools, businesses, and politics).  We can, and should, be better in these areas (I think most would agree).  

Where is the love?  I do not mean this in the literal sense, but in a figurative sense that we, as humans, owe it to ourselves to try to fix this problem. The love starts with the home – how are we raising our kids?  Are we focused on how they treat people or what they have?  The love starts with the press – are we focused on the catchy headline (sometimes even click bait headlines) or telling the true objective story?  The love starts with education – are we working to understand both sides of the discussion or just who is “right”?  The love starts with leadership – are we about placing blame or fixing the issues of the people you represent?  The love starts with faith – faith in mankind, faith that allows us to forgive, faith that guides us to the correct moral decisions.  The love starts with us – we all need to give a little more, accept a little more, understand a little more – and speak up a little more. 

Every generation seems to write about this in their music.  I do not have the answers, and neither did Marvin or John.  I will leave you with three pretty poignant and relative song lyrics.  Timeless….

From The Black-Eyed Peas:

People killin' people dyin', Children hurtin', I hear them cryin'
Can you practice what you preachin'?, Would you turn the other cheek again?
Mama, mama, mama, tell us what the hell is goin' on, Can't we all just get along?
Father, father, father help us, Send some guidance from above
'Cause people got me, got me questioning – “Where is the love?”

From Marvin Gaye:

Mother, mother, There's too many of you crying
Brother, brother, brother, There's far too many of you dying
You know we've got to find a way, To bring some lovin' here today, eheh

Father, father, We don't need to escalate
You see, war is not the answer, For only love can conquer hate
You know we've got to find a way, To bring some lovin' here today, oh oh oh

Picket lines and picket signs, Don't punish me with brutality
Talk to me, so you can see, Oh, what's going on
What's going on, Yeah, what's going on
Ah, what's going on???

From John Lennon: 

Imagine there's no heaven, It's easy if you try
No hell below us, Above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today, Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do, Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too, Imagine all the people living life in peace, you

You may say I'm a dreamer, But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us, And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger, A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people sharing all the world, you, You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one, I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one…

Together.  We.  Win.

Dave Harmon
People Division
“Kindness is Currency”
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/davidharmonhr

Look for us on: LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, The Muse, Glassdoor and USA TODAY NETWORK Careers