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    Get Off Your Duff & Strut Your Stuff: A common sense guide to lose the blues and Make Your Life Matter
    Get Off Your Duff & Strut Your Stuff: A common sense guide to lose the blues and Make Your Life Matter
    Get Off Your Duff & Strut Your Stuff: A common sense guide to lose the blues and Make Your Life Matter
    Ebook159 pages2 hours

    Get Off Your Duff & Strut Your Stuff: A common sense guide to lose the blues and Make Your Life Matter

    By Don Mosher

    ()

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    About this ebook

    25 life lessons to help you lose the blues and "Live a Life that Matters"
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBookBaby
    Release dateJan 22, 2014
    ISBN9781483518534
    Get Off Your Duff & Strut Your Stuff: A common sense guide to lose the blues and Make Your Life Matter

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      Book preview

      Get Off Your Duff & Strut Your Stuff - Don Mosher

      Author

      INTRODUCTION

      GET OFF YOUR DUFF AND STRUT YOUR STUFF

      Been trudging through life aimlessly? You say you get no joy out of living? And that one day pretty much morphs into another? Your pizzazz doesn’t zazz anymore, and all you’re left with is Pi, and you hate math. You say it takes all your energy just to roll your sorry old butt out of your warm, snuggly bed in the morning and face a brand new day? You can’t seem to kick start your old bod? You simply go through the motions, not caring what happens next. Don’t have the slightest idea how to Make Your Life Matter?

      Well, I know from where you’re coming. We’ve all had our share of those days, days when nothing seems to go right, days when the whole world seems to be against us. I’ve had so many of those days, I can’t count ‘em even with my shoes off. Murphy’s Law seemed to apply 24/7 in my life, until I realized that how my life went was up to me.

      "If you don’t like the road you’re

      walking, start paving another."

      -Dolly Parton-

      After years of moaning and groaning and crying in my beer, I finally came to the realization that no matter how much I griped, berated myself, or vented my spleen, no one really gave a hoot. My eyes finally popped open wide and I came to the obvious conclusion that if I wanted to have a better life, I’d have to change my way of living and, if that wasn’t enough, I’d have to change the way I strut my stuff.

      I had to get the old gray matter working overtime and change my assessment of life as I perceived it. No one was going to do it for me. I had to learn how to triumph over all the tribulations—real or imagined—that life threw at me, on my own.

      This is not a book on how to be happy every day of your life. This is not a thesis on dancing with joy each and every day of your life. This is not a theory about avoiding all the problems that life throws in your path. And believe me, life can throw more doozies and hum-dingers in the mix than you can shake a stick at.

      This is a simple dissertation on how to get the most out of every day of your life, using good, old fashioned, common sense. You’ll learn how to solve problems without turning a mole hill into a mountain. This book will not eliminate the pains and trials and tribulations of living. It will simply help you cope with them, through the sad times, through the painful times, and yes, even on your deathbed.

      The first thing I had to do was shake up my life, put my priorities in perspective and create some guidelines. It’s funny, but when I finally realized that sitting around crying and feeling sorry for myself wasn’t getting the job done, my life turned for the better. I lost the why me mind-set. I finally came to the obvious realization that I was responsible for what I did, no matter how I felt; that I controlled my attitude—not vise versa.

      The greatest discovery of any generation

      Is that a human can alter his life

      by altering his attitude

      -William James-

      I started doing things with a constructive bent. I finally figured out how to solve a complex problem with a simple solution. And, lo and behold, my life turned for the better.

      To paraphrase an old song, Anything I can do you can do better. Start thinking properly. Put the old brain in gear and become a take charge person, who will settle for nothing less than the best day possible.

      Others can help you along the way, but if you really want to stroll through the old nitty gritty of life with as little pain as possible you need a can-do attitude.

      We all have problems coping with particular situations, but we don’t have to acquiesce to them. We were put on this earth to enjoy life, to live it to the fullest. So why are so many people unhappy, unable to cope with life’s little discombobulations? We were all given a brain, and the power to reason. All we have to do is tap into that power and life can get better each and every day.

      Let’s see if our problems are indeed immovable boulders or simply sand pebbles that can be crushed beneath our feet, and kicked to the side. Let’s see if we can grasp these problems forcefully and intelligently and reduce them to manageable proportions.

      As you know, there are people who are better looking than you, people who are more intelligent than you, people who are richer than you, people who are physically stronger than you and people who are cleverer than you.

      However, there is no one who has ever lived, no one who is living now, or no one who will ever live, who is any better than you. Keeping that fact in mind, hold your head high knowing that with perseverance and determination, you can achieve anything you set your mind to as you travel through the minefield that is The Old Nitty Gritty of life.

      CHAPTER ONE

      PUT FIRST THINGS FIRST

      You must prioritize your life, or suffer the consequences. Logical sequences of practical and moral judgments are needed in your life to keep you from going astray. If you haven’t considered the results of your decisions, this might be the time to take stock of how they not only affect your life, but the lives of friends and loved ones as well.

      I’m sure you know people who run around helter-skelter, never knowing what direction they will take next. Life, to them, is a series of unrelated events that have absolutely no consequences. To them tomorrow has no meaning. They give in to their latest whim. They are completely oblivious to the fact that they are not the only ones who will suffer the consequences of their slipshod actions.

      Who will suffer the most from any and all bad decisions you make today, or will make tomorrow? Will your choices affect only your life, or will others suffer from any flippant decision you make?

      ***

      One, beautiful, sun filled, southern California afternoon, a week after I entered the fifth grade, my Dad decided, that we should all climb into our old, decrepit Studebaker and drive over and check out his sister and her husbands new home. Little did I know. While visiting with Uncle Del and Aunt Irene, and being as dinner wouldn’t be ready for a few hours, Dad decided that Uncle Dell and I should go with him to visit my Uncle Wes and Aunt Neva who lived in Azusa, which was a short distance away. What the heck, be able get away from the wives for a while and imbibe to their hearts content, without the women folks disapproving.

      The hours we spent in Azusa flew by. Uncle Wes had cases of six ounce bottles of Coke stored in a shed in his back yard, and I was told to help myself, something I wasn’t allowed to do at home. I took full advantage of the situation. As long as I didn’t bug dear old Dad, I was allowed to drink all the Coke and eat all of Aunt Neva’s home made goodies I could hold.

      Dad had been chugging down beer all afternoon, as if there was a coming shortage, and he had to fill up while he could. Uncle Dell had been hitting the hard stuff hot and heavy.

      Aunt Neva glanced up at the clock. I don’t mean to rush you, but isn’t it time you started for home? The girls must be frantic—by now.

      Oh, my God, Dad said, as he smiled, slyly, and glanced at his watch, I’m in trouble now.

      He rousted Uncle Dell out of an overstuffed chair and the two of them did a drunken dance toward the front door.

      To her credit, Aunt Neva was having second thoughts about allowing them to leave, in their present condition.

      Why don’t you have some coffee before you go?

      Don’t need any, Dad said, as they staggered to the car. I’m as steady as a rock whenever I get behind the wheel.

      As it turned out, the rock had a few cracks in it. We only drove two blocks until disaster struck. A car full of teenagers cut Dad off and forced him to slam on the breaks. Uncle Dell fell forward and hit his head on the windshield, opening a minor cut above his right eyebrow, which he managed to smear all over his face. As it turned out, that was just the beginning of our dubious adventure.

      Thirty minutes later, I knew Dad was up to his old tricks—lost in Wonderland. He finally asked Uncle Dell how to get home. Uncle Dell lolled around in the passenger seat, pointed a finger, in who knows what direction, and mumbled something unintelligible.

      Dad grunted and kept driving. He finally turned right into a park like area. We drove between humongous double iron gates that led us up a circular driveway toward a mansion, of sorts, sitting atop a knoll. Dad circled a couple of times, when stopped the car abruptly, stepped out onto the grass, opened his fly, and started urinating on the lawn.

      My heart sank and I almost fainted, as I noticed the sign Dad was standing under: The Greenleaf Boy’s Reformatory. I was so scared I couldn’t swallow my spit. I could visualize, in my minds eye, police cars careening up the driveway. All hell breaking loose, as the authorities rounded up the intruders. The officers would cuff and stuff my Dad and Uncle Dell and take them to the local hoosegow, for desecrating the area and, in general, making a nuisance of themselves.

      I, on the other hand, wouldn’t have far to travel, just up the drive to the boy’s reformatory to be put in a cell with a couple of bullies, or worse yet--perverts, who would take advantage of a little boy whose only crime was taking a ride with his Dad.

      Somehow, through the grace of a kind and benevolent God, we made our escape. After numerous failures, wrong turns, dead end streets, you name it, Dad

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