I’ve never watched the Oprah Winfrey show. Not a single episode. Not even one segment. At best I’ve seen a few scattered minutes of it on other people’s television sets and have turned my attention elsewhere. Sill, I’m sure she’s a good talk show host or she wouldn’t have amassed a large audience and following. This is important because of an endorsement Oprah has made that I’ll get to shortly.

As readers know, our family of five hasn’t had television service for nearly a year now (I’ll write a post updating how things are going around the one year mark), but even if we had TV, I still wouldn’t watch Oprah. I’d rather sit through one of Robert Scoble’s raw footage videos than watch Oprah (although I see Podtech finally gave him an editor). So there’s my Oprah experience and disclaimer.

Oprah endorsed this mega bestselling self-help book called The Secret by Rhonda Byrne based on a DVD of the same name. I had to look the book up on Amazon (pictured right, affiliate link if you really want to buy) to see what it was about:

The Secret contains wisdom from modern-day teachers — men and women who have used it to achieve health, wealth, and happiness. By applying the knowledge of The Secret, they bring to light compelling stories of eradicating disease, acquiring massive wealth, overcoming obstacles, and achieving what many would regard as impossible.

Whenever someone tells me about a single idea, concept and/or non-spiritual belief that changed their life I have to hold back from snickering. Are some people really that gullible? There can be no single secret to making your life better. There are several things you can do mentally, physically and spiritually to increase the odds of living a more fruitful, happy life but a single life altering secret? Rubbish. If such a mind blowing powerful secret existed it would be the worst kept ’secret’ on the planet.

Karen Cerulo, a professor at Rutgers University studied how human beings deal with the future.

Cerulo found that when most of us look out at the world and plan for our future, we fuzz out our vision of any failure, fluke, disease, or disaster on the horizon. Instead, we focus on an ideal future, we burnish our best memories…

Now there is a study I can get behind. Most people want to look ahead at a positive future, who wants to think they’re going to be living in a van down by the river? (Ok, maybe in a Chris Farley SNL skit). I strongly believe in positive grounded thinking which requires routine analyzing of your past and present life. Look around and ask yourself if you really need some secret to help you change the future. Just look at what you did yesterday and are doing today to help change tomorrow.

7 guidelines for a better present and future
If you want to make a positive future for yourself than the following are my 7 guidelines to a better present and future and you don’t need to buy some book or DVD. In fact, I’d say most good advice you receive in life will come from family, friends or research and exploration you conduct yourself, not something a stranger tells you (and if I’m a stranger to you then yes, that applies). I like the number 7, it’s a positive number. If you get three sevens in Vegas it usually means you win something.

1. Put family first, friends second, yourself third, strangers last
2. Work hard, play hard
3. Learn something new every day
4. Don’t hold onto stress, release it
5. Eat right, exercise more
6. Make choices in life that won’t ruin a good night’s sleep or make you wary of looking at the reflection in the mirror
7. Smile, laugh, love, sing (yes, even off key), pray and cry as these are all vital release points

There, my non secrets about being successful in the present and future. Oprah probably won’t recognize or endorse them, I mean who endorses a guy who writes at a blog called Things That … Make You Go Hmm, but if you do those seven things above consistently, if you live by those guidelines, no crystal ball will be necessary to live a happier present and future life.

Myself, I’m weakest at #5. I don’t eat very healthy and my exercise regimen is terrible. I’ve tried to get a good exercise plan going, but it gets back burnered too often. As I’ve gotten older I’ve gotten better about releasing stress (#4) but that’s still a problem a few times a year. It’s amazing what a good night’s sleep will do (#6) and I feel successful about making good decisions I can live with (#6), which many times lead to making less money than I could have made by choosing a different path. Worth remembering that money and good decisions sometimes don’t go hand in hand.

As for #7 where prayer is mentioned, I don’t want to get too religious on readers here because I’m not a deeply religious person. However, I do believe it’s important to have some kind of spiritual belief and to spend a portion of life on earth exploring and developing this belief. Something to believe in that controls life beyond our earthly existence is a very real and necessary part of our species.

I’m not yet convinced there is a single supreme entity but I don’t consider myself an atheist either. I think there is something beyond life on earth and it could have one or more supreme beings in control, but I haven’t worked out the details yet.

I would like to think that people who have lived life honorably will go somewhere once their hearts stop beating. Heaven? Not sure, but there has to be something beyond this relatively short life we live. Something where our essence marches on. I’m fascinated by this subject but continue to search for the answers. One of my prayers is that my exploration on the subject will be complete before I die. I feel like the yearning years (retirement) will yield the greatest success in my spiritual journey.

The eighth rule (bonus)
Because I like bonuses I’ve added one here for readers who made it this far in the list: serendipity. Remember me writing above that by doing several things you could increase the odds of having a happier present and future. I believe fate plays a role and that some amount of luck is involved. Even if we do everything right, we can still fail.

Even if I write the world’s best blog post ever there is a chance only a very small number of people will read it, that it won’t get slashdotted or dugg, be linked by major newspapers, get me on radio, TV and so on. Everybody, myself most certainly included, needs a certain amount of luck in each and every endeavor.

The biggest difference between those with more personal success and happiness are the ones who keep trying. You’ll fail a whole lot more than you’ll ever succeed in life but one, two or more lucky breaks will never happen if you stop trying.

Final thought: money isn’t everything
My problem with a lot of self-help books is too much focus on “being wealthy” as if being wealthy means someone has lived the happier life. There are lots of hard working, good people who will never be wealthy and yet live a wonderful life. Having more money and stuff shouldn’t be anybody’s #1 goal in life. It’s not mine. Having more happiness? Now there is one to live by! Wealth can be very transitory. Ask those who had it at one point but don’t have it any more.

What are your guidelines to living a better present and future life?

Did this post make you go hmm?

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