https://www.happyherald.com/articles.sec-8494-1-life-101.html A delicious self-esteem exercise I love is called a Helpless Day, a teaching in Sondra Ray’s Loving Relationships Training. It’s a day you’ll laugh, cry, and feel like a king or queen. ]]> In our vast cable television landscape that features some thousand or so channels, there is a thin niche of networks dedicated to programming from days gone by.]]> Why would we associate one of the sweetest states of consciousness known to men and women with something as dangerous as falling? What good ever possibly came from falling? Falling on a tennis court can twist your ankle.]]> The other night I screened “Being John Malkovich” for my niece, who had never seen it before. I think it was the fifth such screening for me. In the fantasy comedy, people paid $200 for the experience of somehow being inside the mind of the actor for 15 minutes at a stretch.]]> The first three-and-a-half weeks of December is the season to be jolly. This is obvious, of course, for Christians – who commemorate the 25th of the month to the celebration of their savior, Jesus the Christ. For those of the Jewish faith, Chanukah typically shows up during that same period, albeit its date varies from year to year, being based on the Hebrew calendar.]]> I find her fork fetish amusing. After all, to paraphrase Gertrude Stein, “A fork is a fork is a fork.” Right? Well, maybe not. The more I think about it, the more I find her fork thing charming and conscious. The woman loves these forks. And love, as Lennon and McCartney sang, “is all you need.”]]> The great library of ancient Alexandria is contained more or less in your pocket. Steve Jobs made it his job to see to that. The Library of Congress can be found with a click or two of your keyboard. A wonderful college education can transfer a lot of that knowledge from your phone to your mind. These days we call it downloading. ]]> This last chapter in the section of music, which precedes the next section of comedy, fuses the arts of music and comedy together, but unlike the traditional musical theater productions on Broadway, which do that in a very different way. Instead, this chapter explains the principles in music of the tonic chord and the theme and variations.]]> This column called “Life 101” is about what life can teach us when our eyes are open. Well, animals can teach us a lot too, if we’re receptive to what they can offer.]]> If I were to single out some of the happiest days that I’ve ever known, near the top of that list would be the three days of silence that I was able to enjoy on an advanced meditation course in the Swiss Alps.]]> I just got back from a month in India where I saw some beautiful elephants, an animal that’s revered in that ancient country. Elephants live nearly as long as human beings, with 70 years not at all uncommon for African bush elephants, and African forest ones, as well.]]> Recently, I was watching an episode of the TV sitcom “The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show” on the retro cable channel, Cozi TV, when I noticed that George Burns, who would later go on to portray God in two motion pictures, often watched what happened to his friends and family on a TV screen that nobody else knew about.]]> With April being National Poetry Month, I wanted to share the poetry of John Keats – the John Keats who was a great 19th century British poet – who understood that Beauty and Truth are transcendental, that they both participate in eternity. ]]> “I ask the Lord in Heaven above What is this thing called love?” Romantic love was that sublime thing that Porter wrote more about than anything else. While its mystery sometimes eluded him, his passion for love and his passion for writing songs about love gave him glimpses into some of the workings of the very heavens themselves.]]> Just about every single person who attends my workshop, “The Secret of Successful Relationships: How to Draw more Love into your Life,” wants to enjoy more good dates. For people who’ve been bored, burned and belittled by dates, having more dates doesn’t whet their appetites. But good dates… well, that’s a date of an entirely different color. ]]> To become successful as an entrepreneur requires access to a big idea; passionate belief in that idea; boundless optimism; skills of persuasion that attract capital to fund the idea, and gain the support of people to help make the idea a reality; persistence until the idea becomes successful;]]> The title of this column is “Life 101,” and its purpose is to help you see what life has to teach you when your eyes are open. Today’s column will surprise you to no end when you discover that many of the expressions you speak on a regular basis are actually original lines written 400 years ago by none other than William Shakespeare, who coined these expressions that are now part of our vernacular.]]> The other night I was staying with my friend Pat in Jacksonville, and after dinner we decided to see a movie. She asked me what I could recommend, and knowing her interest in spirituality and a good love story (who doesn’t love a good love story?), I suggested “Made in Heaven,” which I had already seen on three different occasions.]]> The Witness Is Protection Program, a term that I originated, has basically been in effect since the dawn of Man, or more aptly, ever since mankind came to understand and experience the peace of Self-Realization]]> “You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ . . . You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” ]]>