Golden Rule #31: Do What You’re Made To Do.

Of all the rules, this is one of my absolute favorites. Does this mean you’re only made to do one thing? Nope. It certainly doesn’t. It means you are wired a certain way, with specific gifts, skills, strengths, and aptitudes, and completing those circuits will complete something inside you like nothing else.

Many years ago my best girlfriend in the history of ever hand-lettered a beautiful sentiment. No idea where she got it, but I memorized it, and it has proved itself so true, over and over and over, as the years have gone by.

A woman will get only what she seeks

Choose your goals carefully

Know what you like

And what you do not like

Be critical about what you can do well

Choose a career or lifestyle that interests you

And work hard to make it a success

But also have fun in what you do

Be honest with people, and do your best

But don’t depend on anyone to make life easy or happy for you

(Only you can do that for yourself)

Be strong and decisive

But remain sensitive

Understand who you are

And what you want in life

When you are ready to enter a relationship

Make sure that the person is worthy

Of everything you are physically and mentally capable of

Strive to achieve all that you want

Find happiness in everything you do

Love with your entire being

Love with an uninhibited soul

Make a triumph of every aspect of your life.

(Author: Susan Polis Schultz)

I haul it out and think on it, especially when I struggle with whether I’m doing what I’m made to do. Mind you, I haven’t questioned that much in the last 15 years or so. I know I am. But before that? I worked as a customer service representative for a big publishing company. It had a daunting list of unfamiliar products, a phone system that screamed and flashed lights when calls were waiting, a computer system that defied anyone’s ability to navigate, and countless bright eyed college students spinning facts from scripts at dizzying speeds while administrators trolled up and down between the desks. Oh yes and hosts of angry customers, many of whom worked up a healthy head of steam while waiting on hold for almost an hour. Time clocks. Policies. Dress Codes. Headsets. It was memorable for so many different reasons, and I can still recall in vivid technicolor some of the most vicious calls.

Before that, I worked for a general practice law firm, back before computers were commonplace but mag card typewriters and IBM Personal Typing Systems…now they were everywhere! I could transcribe dictation, navigate the Michigan Court Rules, decipher the world’s worst penmanship, set up and maintain complicated client files, and file court documents with the best of them. The stories from that place! No wonder John Grisham can write so prolifically!

And before that, I sold black sweet cherries at roadside fruit stands during the summers. Great way to meet people. Get a good tan, if only on the front half of me. Weigh and display fruit. Count change. Give directions to out-of-towners. It was a grand adventure that began when I was about 14.

There were other jobs along the way, too, and even when I despaired of ever making a living as a writer, in retrospect, I know this for sure: there was no wasted time, no wasted skill. It all went into the hopper of life experience, and I use it today. Well, maybe not the mag card typewriter. But the ability to master unfamiliar equipment and programs? Yep. What about calming down upset people? Every. Single. Day. Preparing invoices? Cutting checks? Giving directions? Oh yes. Yes indeed.

The thing is, you have to get to a point where you know that you don’t have anything to prove to anyone. You’ve paid your dues. You don’t apologize…you just do what you know, and do what you are, and it is enough. It is more than just enough. It is the best and rarest thing ever. Don’t forget: you have the best job in the world — and you are absolutely qualified to do it!

How did Copper teach me this life lesson? Well, he pretty much underscored it. Life itself taught me, and life is a relentless teacher…if you don’t get the lesson one way, it circles around and teaches you another way.

Copper is all about doing what he is made to do. Copper’s registered name is Wright’s Golden Comfort. He is uniquely attuned to the atmosphere around him. When someone needs comfort, he is all over that. He leans into them. He staples them to the floor with his body. He just oozes comfort. I don’t know how he knows. But he knows. And he is the greatest comfort when things are uncertain. Turns out he joined us on the cusp of more uncertainty than anyone imagined. And he just muscles his beautiful golden way right through it and reassures us with his smile and his incredibly positive attitude. Is he perfect? No. Does he make things better? You better believe it!

Golden Rule #30: There Are No Dull Moments. None.

How often do you hear someone say, “That’s boring!” or, “I’m bored!” Bored, like so many other things in life, is an attitude, and an attitude is…a choice.

Some things are more interesting and exciting than other things. Folding socks, for instance, is not terribly interesting. Data entry tends to make the mind want to wander. How about being caught at the railroad tracks by a seemingly endless, slow-moving train?

Trains and tracks wind throughout Pensacola like a giant zipper. As frustrating as it might be to be caught on the wrong side of the tracks when one lumbers through, I remind myself…the railroads opened Pensacola up to the rest of the country. Before they came, Pensacola was largely accessible only by water. Our beautiful beaches really were our best-kept secret. The railroads brought people in…and took people, and products, out. Everything changed when the railroads came through.

But that doesn’t really help when you’re sitting at the track with the bars coming inexorably down. What do you do? When my daughters were young, we used to count the train cars. About the time we got close to 100 cars, the train would start picking up speed and we would see the caboose rumbling along behind alllllll those cars. It actually got to the point where we didn’t dread the trains because we knew we’d get to count the cars, and check out the colorful graffiti on the sides of some of them. Double decker cars counted twice, by the way.

Because I’m convinced that everything happens for a reason, I tend not to see any moments as “dull.” I just don’t. There’s always something to study, turn over, think about, or do. Even as a kid, I found ways to entertain myself. When I was about 10 years old, I used to sit in church, pencil in hand, paper on my lap (usually the back of one of those handy offering envelopes at the ready in the pew in front of us), and write down every word I heard that was seven letters or longer. We lived in a college town, and some of those preachers really went to town with the five-dollar words. After the service, I would give the list to my dad, who would thank me, and carefully tuck it away in his jacket pocket. What was the point? Well, there probably wasn’t one. Nobody told me to do that. Did it help my vocabulary, and affect my livelihood? Possibly. It kept me out of trouble, though, because I never knew when one of those words was going to show up.

And what has life with Copper taught me about dull moments? With Copper around, there is no such thing, ever! Copper is a very busy dog. He has always been a very busy dog, from the time he arrived on the scene. I loved that his breeder kept him and his litter mates in a pen filled with cedar shavings and played classical music to soothe their little minds and impart culture as well. I’ve learned that “calm” and “dull” are nowhere near the same words, even though they have the same number of letters. We’ve learned that twice-daily walks help settle Copper’s mind and we use the term “power chewer” when referring to his habits. Copper always has the inclination to calm others down, whether people or dogs, and he’s sensitive to tension in the atmosphere. Sometimes we have to help him calm down, too, when he’s too excited. But dull? Nope. Not a single second of dull with this bright boy around!

Golden Rule #29: Be Thankful for the Opportunity.

This one is pretty easy, when things go well and you finish a project triumphantly and you get to hear praise for your creativity and hard work and the check arrives and you have the prospect of more wonderful things in the near future. Yep. It really is.

And then there are times when you take on more than you can possibly do, and you know that even your best effort might not be enough. You’re tired, dirty, hungry, and nobody is paying the least bit of attention to you or your work. Instead of feeling good, you’re feeling lousy, and the refrigerator stops working and the car is making a funny noise and that’s an unexpected bill in your mailbox.

How about the times when you have to change course so suddenly that you don’t get a chance to finish what you started? Those might be the hardest ones of all — there’s no closure, no sense of completion.

To all of those, can you say, gracefully, “thank you for the opportunity?” Even bad experiences teach us important lessons, and those lessons definitely stick!

I absolutely love Teddy Roosevelt’s speech entitled “Citizenship in a  Republic.” In part, he said,

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

You can’t go wrong being thankful. You just can’t. It catches people off guard. Often they aren’t expecting it. They might think you’re going to ignore them, or chew them out, and instead, you thank them. Try it. See what happens.

Copper embodies gratitude. He thanks me for waking up in the morning, for taking him for his two daily walks, for his food, for his treats, for his school sessions, for making sure he has access to fresh flowing water in the bathtub, and for any number of other things. He sometimes shows it in crazy ways — just yesterday I had to bribe him to release a macaroni-and-cheese print sock of Marley’s, for instance. But there is no “cold and timid” with Copper. I know where I stand with him. His gratitude makes my days infinitely better.