Waste Not A Moment - Take Action Towards Happiness

In the early 1990s when was caught in the grips of addiction, I roamed the Lower East Side of Manhattan with the sole mission to stay loaded every minute of my life. At Houston Street and Avenue A was an apartment building called “Red Square.” On the roof was a statue of Lenin and a clock with misplaced numbers. Painted near the clock was the phrase “Waste Not A Moment.”

The statue and the clock are still there, but the phrase that antagonized me while I wasted my moments is gone. Those wasted moments of my early 20s can be traced back to the day I discovered how easy it was to break into my parent’s liquor cabinet and began mixing not-so tasty drinks for the other neighborhood children. Of course, being only in elementary school, I didn’t understand that “mixing” drinks, meant mixing with “mixers” - like soda. My concoctions featured gin mixed with the rum and the vodka, etc. I stood at the bar mixing away and telling jokes while my peers sat on the couch bristling and chattering in the excitement of being “bad.” It was fun. Whether the drinks tasted good was not the point. I reveled my new “Dean Martin” identity much more than the one I truly held of a very sad little girl secretly taunted by the feeling that her mother didn’t love her. When my parents eventually discovered the raided liquor cabinet, my older sister took the fall for my offense. I suppose that as far as my parents were concerned, I was too young to even be on the list of suspects. I can still hear my sister pleading her innocence as I sat on the couch listening with my mouth shut.

It didn’t take long before what started like an occasional toe in the water transformed into a daily ritual. For me, the phrase “getting ready for school” meant smoking pot through a makeshift tin-foil and toilet-paper roll bong while dangling my torso out my bedroom window. My mother sat smoking cigarettes at the kitchen table, staring into the curio cabinet while “golden oldies” blasted on the AM radio. On her way out the door for work at the local post office where she was the head clerk, she would bang 3 times on the wall to tell me it was my turn to leave and go to school. I HATED the banging and had repeatedly asked her to call me by name rather than bang on the wall. The BANG-BANG-BANG made me feel even more powerless and the lack of love and connection more profound. The incessant emptiness that developed in the pit of my stomach needed relief and I suppose drugs did the trick.

Since my parents seemed unhappy, I looked around for heroes and settled on tormented writers and rock stars who died of drug overdoses – as well as Judy Garland. I would get stoned and listen to Janis Joplin or Judy Garland, identifying with their pain while extolling and emulating their inability to live life. If only I could splash my pain all over a stage somewhere! They were so lucky! So as I wandered the Lower East Side at the time it was Disneyland for drug addicts, the “Waste Not A Moment” sign constantly tapped me on the shoulder to remind me that I was making causes for a miserable life.

I now see my childhood heroes as tragic and deluded as I was. They spoke to my pain. Today I try to find heroes who speak to the best in me, not the worst. Every day is another opportunity to plant more seeds of success. Like this blog… I am writing it in the hope that I can turn my experiences into something that may give someone hope and may help someone somewhere.

Take action to plant seeds of success! Here are some quick tips you can use today:

• Let go of negative feelings. It’s true that people may have done you wrong in the past, but they may as well be doing you wrong today if you hold on to resentments. Free yourself with forgiveness.

• Surround yourself with positive people. If you don’t know any positive people yet, sign up to volunteer somewhere. Volunteering will also help if you feel lonely or isolated.

• Exercise. We all know that exercise elevates mood. I know that when I’m feeling depressed, it is often next to impossible to get out of my own way and move! I get it – but the truth is, I get better a day at a time by taking action in SPITE of how I feel. That’s how it works – we take action and THEN we feel better – not the other way around.

I hope you enjoyed this post. Please be good to yourself!  Visit me at Fandha.com - Don't Go Into Your Mind Alone.