Kathy is leaving me! I have injured my arm pretty badly and can’t play golf for another week or two. Either I go somewhere else for the daylight hours or she will. So being a wimp, I am on my way to one of my favorite haunts, Barnes and Noble.

Armed with a Venti coffee, I am now wandering around the pay as you go library and my first stop is the magazine rack. Sorry TTG, Playboy is all wrapped in plastic. There is actually some sense of order to the rack that goes from houses to sports to food to your body beautiful.

We have Self, Men’s Health, Women’s Health and good old Cosmopolitan for the vain. Splashed with lurid covers, I can learn how to “Make Your Move.” There are “Twenty Five Things that Will Drive him Wild”. Note to self. Make sure I get that for Kathy. Whew, it’s getting hot in here.

Now to the sports area, where it used to be just Sports Illustrated, The Sporting News and Golf magazine. Now we have Outdoors where you can have the most challenging hikes you never knew. Powder shows you how to jump off cliffs and kill yourself. And Backpacking asks if you are really a man you will take a forty day trek with a 70 pound pack?

Finance has the siren’s call of Money, Kiplingers and Mutual Fund magazine. All will turn your IRA of $25,000 into a million overnight. Trust me.

Ah, the fashionistas. Throw out everything from last year. Since you didn’t keep what you wore five years ago or you missed the latest, don’t worry it is coming around again. Whether it is women or men, if we looked like those models I wouldn’t be writing a blog and you wouldn’t be reading it. The underlying theme of all this is that the celebrities or at least their handlers are going to make you light years better.

Several years ago I was working on a project tp put a positive spin on mental illness. I hired a couple of advertising people for the afternoon. They asked me what were the symptoms of depression? I said the major one was a lack of self esteem. All conversation stopped.

The Mad Avenue boys said, “we have a problem”. They related that their whole purpose in life was to show people how inadequate they are. They constantly barraged you with a lack of self esteem. I started to watch the TV ads for more hidden messages. They weren’t subtle. They were Mack trucks. You stink!!

Pondering as I may, I thought about all the visible and audible messages we get every day.The news. Dr. Phil. The Greatest Loser. Talk show hosts from Rush to Chris Matthews. As for those two, I listened to both one day for an hour and not one positive thought or concept was conveyed by either. We get barraged every day. All day long. Negative. Negative. Negative.

Don’t you get it? Your life is horrible. If you don’t listen to me, vote for me, look like me, think like me, dress like me, or pray with me, your life is over. Finis!

Take golf, which I can only talk about while I am nursing my wounds. We beat each other into the ground. We take lessons. We buy the latest equipment. We still don’t get much better. And then what do we do?. We go out and play the hardest golf course we can find. Ted, do you know how cool it was to play Bandon Dunes in 45 degree temperatures and 50 knot winds? Go ahead. Tell me.

The Cordillera Valley course was designed by Tom Fazio. He is renowned for building “playable” golf courses. I played one hole on the official opening day with  Tom, President Ford, Gary McCord, and Dave Pelz.

Going down the fairway with a gorgeous view of the Gore Range beyond, I said, “Tom. You have no idea how much fun people are having playing this course.” He replied. “Ted. Isn’t that the idea?”

Life isn’t as bad as we make it out to be. We listen to too many authorities and fail to rely on our own instincts. Look around at what you have physically as well as spiritually. It’s much more than you need. Be honest but don‘t beat yourself up. Be glad you don’t live in Tripoli or Calcutt

Life doesn’t suck. It couldn’t be better.

As Always

Ted The Great

Factoids:

Ralph Lauren was born Ralph Lifshitz…and his first shirts had toilets on them instead of ponies.                There are 400,000 parasites and twenty five types of bacteria exchanged in one French kiss. Isn’t it romantic?          400,000 houses in the US do not have indoor plumbing. I love nature.            It is estimated that .7% of the world is drunk at any given point in time. Hoc est hic.                There are 100 billion neurons in the average brain. How many did you kill over the long weekend?…….I GOTTA GET BACK TO GOLF SOON !