The New York Times has a fascinating article on the rapid demise of a couple who won a huge lottery jackpot:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/05/national/05winnings.html?incamp=article_popular_3

While one might feel a bit smug upon finishing the article, there is a VALUABLE moral provided by this story and the deaths of this couple: throw out all those self-improvement books because you cannot possibly change who you intrinsically are.

Your demons will always haunt you and you’ll always ignore your beautiful qualities.

After reading this article, I called my mother later in the day to chat. I hadn’t mentioned the lottery article to her, when she started telling me about finding a stack of letters that she, my brother, and I had written to my mother’s mother when she was dying of cancer.

My mother and brothers laughed heartily as they read the 30-year-old letters, because each one of us letterwriters was complaining to Nana about someone else in the family . . .and all of now admit that those complaints were absolutely valid . . .and that the same complaints could still be accurately lodged against us as adults. None of us changed.

I still talk too annoyingly loud . . .et al.

Rather disheartening that we humans are stuck on an endless personality treadmill; but I suspected as much.

When my son was born, almost twenty years ago, I had a very strong impression of how I thought his personality would develop . . .just from the way he responded to me . . .and I was absolutely correct in my assumption. He’s very laid-back, goes with the flow, but over-analyzes EVERYTHING.

When I had to go back and re-read my journals for the I.R.S. audit, I see that the same crap has been bugging me for the past ten years. I think I'm so witty in my journals, but I'm just hashing out the same worthless concerns year after year.

So my theory, which can be proved by the lottery story, my son’s personality development, my journals, and the discovery of the old family letters, is that you are who you are from the moment you’re born . . .barring some sort of hideous interference in your development, such as child abuse, or war, etc.

Accept this fact and just enjoy who you are . . .you no longer have to fret about how much you weigh, how much money you have, or changing any aspect of yourself . . .because you can never change who you really are.

If you’re unhappy because you’re overweight, you’ll be unhappy when you’re thin.
If you're a serial murderer, that's just the way you are . . .not even an intervention from Dr. Phil can help you.
If you’re miserable with your current meager salary, winning the jackpot won’t cure your blues.

You’ll always be lugging along all your same foibles and attributes . . . embrace them and enjoy the life you have.

I have a dead sheep floating in the pond outside my office window reminding me that no one has enough time to waste wishing for better days to come . . .the best days are here, right now, TODAY!