When I was a kid in L.A., I loved the Dodgers.  It was the era of Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Maury Wills (Perranoski, Fairly, Tommy and Willie Davis – if you were there, you know what I’m talkin’ about) – World Series appearances in ’59, ’63, ’65 and ’66 and a heartbreaking near miss in ’62.  Players didn’t make astronomical salaries and stayed with the same team (and city) throughout their careers.  Ernie  Banks died this week and he was a wonderful man who played with grace and joy for an atrocious Chicago Cubs team for his entire professional life.  It was a nice fantasy – that these guys were playing for us and our neighbors.  Of course, there was its own brand of injustice to this sweet ideal that a 12 year old boy clutched to his heart.  Professional athletes were forced to stay with the same team by a “reserve clause” in every contract and got paid pretty much what the owners wanted to pay them.

Well, the pendulum has swung to the other pole now with whiplash-inducing velocity.  When Alex Rodriguez signed a 2001 contract paying him $25 million dollars per year, he banked more in 2 days than most fans made in an entire year (over $130,000).  The minimum salary for the major league baseball player who may spend most of the year riding the bench is now $500,000. (Who do you know that makes anywhere near that kind of money?  Few, I would guess.) When a contract is completed, they go to the highest bidder – with an annual salary of $8 million dollars not being good enough if they can make $10 million per year somewhere else.  The days when a pro athlete could remotely be considered “one of us” are long dead and buried.  So has my love for following sport waned – only to pick up if the current team, composed of some familiar and some new, big contract guys start winning.  Owners, like Howard Schultz, unload a “civic institution” like the Seattle Sonics on a group that immediately moves them to Oklahoma City because the place they play can’t accommodate wealthy business people and their hunger for luxury suites.  Professional football players are forced to play a game on Thursday night, given just three days rest after taking a beating equivalent to a mugging with a steel pipe.  Why?  More wealth for the already wealthy.  Boy, talk about the corruption of money in American life – look no further than the world of sports.

And then the Seahawks stage a miraculous comeback and land in their second straight Super Bowl, to be played in three days.  I just received an e-mail from a therapist I don’t know commenting on a piece I just wrote for a local therapists’ newsletter and she ended her message with “Go Hawks!”  I had a couple I work with in therapy end their session two nights ago with the same exhortation.  Drive through Seattle or Bellevue and you can’t go more than two blocks without seeing a “12” banner, signifying the Twelfth Man – the team’s fans.  It doesn’t matter if you are black or white, rich or poor or even freakin’ red blooded or blue blooded.  Everyone around here is pumped and an entire civic culture is joined around two words “Go Hawks.”  If Russell, Marshawn, Richard, Doug, Bobby and the rest of the Legion of Boom win on Sunday, strangers will beam with unalloyed joy at one another for weeks afterward.  If Brady and his crew of talented cheaters prevail, the disappointment well be joined, a great ride having been shared.  So for all the corruption of values inherent in modern sports, the gift to a community – of unity around a goal is refreshing, lifting spirits around this region – regardless of politics, station in life or present circumstances.  When it’s all over, weeks or months from now, we can all go back to our old divisions and gripes. For now, though….Go Hawks!

I went out to my car last week and found the rear window smashed and two things taken from my back seat – an empty briefcase and a ratty old Jansport backpack with my gym stuff in it.  “They” did it in the middle of the night. (Don’t you want to find out who “they” are?…your own personal “they’s”)  Anyway, while the briefcase was well worn and nice, my biggest sense of loss came from the theft of my combination lock.  I remember years ago when I opened the packaging and read that the combination was 28 -2-8.  C’mon!  It just can’t get any easier than that….and I loved my combination lock.  I felt so lucky to have picked it out.

Martin Seligman, one of our greatest psychologists, has long studied happiness.  He has been striving for years to develop an approach to mental health treatment which transcends the age-old medical model of diagnosis of a “disorder” and then working to eliminate the “disorder.”  Seligman wondered why we can’t move above the baseline of functionality, into the realm of happiness and well-being.  This notion has captured the enthusiasm of a large segment of the mental health community.  Just note the surge of people incorporating “mindfulness” into their practices.  Mindfulness is both a way to ease stress and internal pain and a path to affirmative well-being.

So what does a combination lock have to do with Seligman and positive psychology?  Well, one of the most important tools for achieving well-being is appreciation.  Cultivating a sense of appreciation for the good in our lives cushions us against the deeper dismay which will always accompany loss.  Also, appreciation buoys our spirits in the day to day.  One of Seligman’s best exercises is the “Three Blessings.”  Each night before you lay down to sleep, take a notebook or piece of paper and write down three blessings of the day just ending.  This will train your mind to be alert to both the big and the little things which we can appreciate in life.  These little things can be a pleasant exchange with our partner or a friend; the burst of life in the leaves that are unfolding as Spring arrives; the wag of our dog’s tail because we are really, really loved; the good feeling from not eating something we know isn’t good for us; a great movie we just watched or the bike ride we completed.  Nothing should be taken for granted.  We live in a world which may often seem bent on eroding any sense of well-being.  We can keep that force at bay when we embrace the little treasures.

I’m going to store today and will myself to pick a lock with my birthday as a combination.  I’ll tell you how it goes.

We just returned from a 10-day stay in beautiful Ireland.   I had been there years ago during the waning days of a failing marriage and didn’t like the place at all.  Just goes to show how important state of mind is!  This time, my wife and I joined our 21 year old daughter and traipsed around Dublin and the Southwest and I fell in love with the land and its people.  Being away to another culture allows a wonderful insight into our own and America shines brightly through the Irish lens.  So many came from the island to the U.S. – particularly during the catastrophic potato famine of the late 1840’s (which wiped out about 1/3 of the 8 million population through starvation or emigration.  In fact, Ireland has never reached its pre-famine population!).  Hardly a person we spoke to failed to have relatives in this country.  Gracious, full of humor, delightful poetry in their expression and extremely friendly – a visit is like immersion into a warm human bath.  Yet, there is a vein of pain which runs through the Irish heart and history.  The oppression of the huge power (England) just to the east, that imposed laws which prohibited, upon pain of death, the open worship of their faith and allowed Protestants to move to the island and confiscate the land and property of the rural farmers under the policy of “plantation” – the depredations of Oliver Cromwell hundreds of years ago – the multiple uprisings seeking freedom and autonomy which were brutally put down – this was the same oppressive power that the American colonists rebelled against successfully.  Looking at the U.S. from Ireland, you see an extremely optimistic people and a wealthy, wealthy land.  You can make it in Ireland, but if you make it in the U.S., well, you have made it!  I have spoken with immigrants from places like Russia and they repeat the vision of this country as having a basically optimistic spirit.  Visions which will remain include the Irish field, with plots defined by chest-high rock walls; the greenest of green grass grazed over by large flocks of sheep; occasional ruins of 400 year old (or older) castles or monasteries as you  drive from one rural town to the next; pubs, like Dick Macks in Dingle, where I walked in on a bachelor party of about 30 guys crammed into this tiny space raising their Guinness’, standing on tables and benches and singing at the top of their lungs or the traditional music jam in a Doolin pub with a fiddle, guitar, two flutes and a guy who played accordion like a god and was better as the night wore on and he got increasingly smashed; the Book of Kells which is adorned with the most beautiful inscriptions and monastic art (with scores of ways to depict in art different letters – like the letter “d” for example).  We are so young – they are so old.  Perhaps most importantly, it was revitalizing to go away for just a couple of weeks and return refocused and refreshed.  It’s good to be back with our memories and the fun and interesting work ahead.