One More Day Alive

For many years as a reporter for People magazine, The National Enquirer, The Globe, and The National Examiner, I was up to my scruples in sensational tragedies, from the O.J. Simpson story and the Jon Benet Ramsey mystery to Princess Diana’s death and countless others. Then the Columbine story broke and my life changed forever. Columbine was a devastating incident, but the irresponsible mass media hysteria that followed was worse and undeniably brought about a copycat shooting by a similarly deranged youth the following month at Heritage High School in Rockdale County, Georgia.

As I saw society depressed more and more by this journalistic “tragicide,” I knew that there were hundreds of uplifting and incredibly dramatic stories that go unwritten or relatively uncovered every day, involving people who have overcome life’s greatest obstacles to achieve happiness for themselves and their loved ones. So I quit my job and began writing about those people in my first book, Triumphs of the Heart.

In writing that inspiring book, I found people from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds and cultural perspectives from one end of the country to another. What they all had in common was that after losing everything they originally thought life was about — success, money, comfort, or luxury — they realized that life’s true worth lies not in the results but deep within the process of noble and sincere living. They realized that happiness wasn’t even about overcoming their hardships but about loving others and yourself every day and in every way while enduring those hardships. Even as their own lives were plagued with troubles, they all understood they had the capacity to love and respect humanity and the right to be loved themselves.

They understood that since the beginning of time mankind has had to care for each other even as pain, suffering, and hatred exists, and even as we toil to make a living by the sweat of our brow and contend with the struggles of everyday living.

I leaned that the people who ultimately master the ability to live in this inspiring manner are real heroes to themselves and to the rest of the world. And in the grand scope of life that means that everyone can and should be a hero. Because living like a hero will yield unimaginable joy, success, and contentment for you and the rest of society.

At the heart of this hero mindset is a set of principles — integrity, duty, self-respect, faith, devotion, altruism, compassion, listening, and forgiveness — that makes our commitment to love others real and brings about remarkable changes in the lives of others as well as our own.

We can and should be a hero at our jobs, at home, even when we are waiting in line at the grocery store. In every single relationship or encounter, we must ask whether we are respecting human dignity or instead thinking about what we will gain or lose from the interaction. If we answer the latter, then it’s time to change our game plan and step up to the plate to be a hero.

The next time you are feeling down or depressed, try this simple little exercise below. It will remind you of your own heroes and your own ability to be a hero. I guarantee you it will pick you up and head you in the right direction. I call it “The Road Map to Happiness.”

1. Who do you love (pick one person) and why are they so special to you?
2. What’s the nicest thing anybody ever did for you and how did it inspire or help you?
3. What’s the kindest thing you ever did for someone else that helped to make their day or their life better? How has 4. helping that person enhanced your own life?
4. What is something positive which filled your heart with happiness that you saw somebody else do yesterday or today to help someone else? It could be a family member, a friend, or even a complete stranger who you felt made somebody happy.
5. Who loves you and how do they show it? How has their love changed your life?

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