The Best Advice I Ever Got (31 page)

Kevin Clash

Co-Executive Producer of “Elmo’s World,” Director, Puppet Captain, and Performer of Elmo

What I’ve Learned from Elmo

The joy I have witnessed when a child meets Elmo for the first time is incredibly overwhelming to me. I often feel like a fly on the wall witnessing pure happiness when Elmo’s fans, young and old, greet their furry red
Sesame Street
friend in person.

Nothing is sweeter to me than watching a child, with just a diaper on, coming up to Elmo for a hug. I remember one little girl who actually pulled Elmo off my hand and walked away with him, holding Elmo like a baby. I can still see this child, sitting on her mother’s lap, rocking Elmo to sleep. It was such a funny moment.

One day, a young man contacted me about his upcoming tenth wedding anniversary. He wanted Elmo to sign his
Best of Elmo
video as a gift to his wife. He explained that every time he or his wife had a bad day they would come home, put on the
Best of Elmo
video, and it would change their mood instantly.

What I have learned from performing Elmo is that loving and laughter are a gift, and they should be shared every day.

Rosario Dawson

Actress and Activist

Feast on Your Life

One of the best pieces of advice that I ever received came recently during a powwow with my dear friend and mentor, Eve Ensler. We’ve worked together for years, even before I joined the board of V-Day, a global movement she created to end violence against women and children, and our conversations have always been stirring. Eve asked me how I was doing—in that thorough way women have when checking in on each other’s journey in life. I told her that I was reevaluating—starting to look at the long term now as a thirty-one-year-old woman and taking stock of my life. I guess Eve sensed that I was feeling a bit anxious because she said, “Rosario, this is your life, your work, your family, your friends. All of these things and people are like heaping plates of food in front of you, and you’re getting so caught up in what’s next, your food is getting cold. You leave yourself unsatisfied. I say, eat it all up! It will sustain you.”

I love food and I remember all of my favorite meals. (I’ve actually cried eating my mom’s pork chops!) How crazy would it be, I thought, if I’d taken only one bite? If I hadn’t really committed to the experience in front of me? I realized that what Eve was saying was true. Society tells us to think about
next, next, next
so much so that we never really finish what’s in front of us. We taste only a few little bites here and there before (“Ooh, shiny! What’s that over there?”) moving on to the next plate. We deny our pleasures in order to please. We move too fast: too busy with diets and vigilantly depriving and denying ourselves; fatalistically marrying ourselves to our pain and shame and unhappiness because it’s easier. Why? Why won’t we let ourselves be happy? Why do we feel that everyone else but us deserves bliss? Even when things are going well, we’re so apprehensive that the other shoe
might
drop that we miss the moment.

Instead, as Eve told me, we need to learn to sit down and eat that meal that is our life. Really consume it. And I’m not talking about stuffing yourself with “stuff” to fill the void but consuming real nourishment. Enjoy every step of the journey, not just the choice bits and the peaks that society deems important. All of it is important—so let it in! Fill up on every experience life has in store. It’s your life, and it’s right in front of you. You can’t save it for later, so get down to cleaning your plate and licking your fingers. Taste what life has to offer. Savor it. Enjoy the feast!

Russell Baker

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author and Columnist

Ten Ways to Avoid Mucking Up the World Any Worse Than It Already Is

One: Bend down once in a while and smell a flower.

Two: Don’t go around in clothes that talk. There is already too much talk in the world. We’ve got so many talking people there’s hardly anybody left to listen. With radio and television and telephones, we’ve got talking furniture. With bumper stickers, we’ve got talking cars. Talking clothes just add to the uproar. If you simply cannot resist being an incompetent klutz, don’t boast about it by wearing a T-shirt that says
UNDERACHIEVER AND PROUD OF IT
. Being dumb is not the worst thing in the world, but letting your clothes shout it out loud depresses the neighbors and embarrasses your parents.

Point three follows from point two, and it’s this: Listen once in a while. It’s amazing what you can hear. On a hot summer day in the country, you can hear the corn growing, the crack of a tin roof buckling under the power of the sun. In a real, old-fashioned parlor silence so deep that you can hear the dust settling on the velveteen settee, you might hear the footsteps of something sinister gaining on you, or a heart-stoppingly beautiful strain from Mozart that you haven’t heard since childhood, or the voice of somebody—now gone—whom you loved. Or sometime when you’re talking up a storm so brilliant, so charming that you can hardly believe how wonderful you are, pause for just a moment and listen to yourself. It’s good for the soul to hear yourself as others hear you, and next time maybe, just maybe, you won’t talk so much, so loudly, so brilliantly, so charmingly, so utterly shamefully foolishly.

Four: Sleep in the nude. In an age when people don’t even get dressed to go to the theater anymore, it’s silly getting dressed up to go to bed. What’s more, now that you can no longer smoke, drink gin, or eat bacon and eggs without somebody trying to make you feel ashamed of yourself, sleeping in the nude is one deliciously sinful pleasure that you can commit without being caught by the Puritan police squads that patrol the nation.

Five: Turn off the TV once or twice a month and pick up a book. It will ease your blood pressure. It might even wake up your mind, but if it puts you to sleep you’re still a winner. Better to sleep than have to watch that endless parade of body bags the local news channel marches through your parlor.

Six: Don’t take your gun to town. Don’t even leave it at home unless you lock all your bullets in a safe-deposit box in a faraway bank. The surest way to get shot is not to drop by the nearest convenience store for a bottle of milk at midnight but to keep a loaded pistol in your own house. What about your constitutional right to bear arms, you say. I would simply point out that you don’t have to exercise a constitutional right just because you have it. You have the constitutional right to run for president of the United States, but most people have too much sense to insist on exercising it.

Seven: Learn to fear the automobile. It is not the trillion-dollar deficit that will finally destroy America. It is the automobile. Congressional studies of future highway needs are terrifying. A typical projection shows that when your generation is middle-aged, Interstate 95 between Miami and Fort Lauderdale will have to be twenty-two lanes wide to avert total paralysis of South Florida. Imagine an entire country covered with asphalt. My grandfather’s generation shot horses. Yours had better learn to shoot automobiles.

Eight: Have some children. Children add texture to your life. They will save you from turning into old fogies before you’re middle-aged. They will teach you humility. When old age overtakes you—as it inevitably will, I’m sorry to say—having a few children will provide you with people who will feel guilty when they’re accused of being ungrateful for all you’ve done for them. It’s almost impossible nowadays to find anybody who will feel guilty about anything, including mass murder. When you reach the golden years, your best bet is children, the ingrates.

Nine: Get married. I know you don’t want to hear this, but getting married will give you a lot more satisfaction in the long run than your BMW. It provides a standard set of parents for your children and gives you that second income you will need when it’s time to send those children to college. What’s more, without marriage you’ll have practically no material at all to work with when you decide to write a book or hire a psychiatrist.

When you get married, whatever you do, do not ask a lawyer to draw up a marriage contract spelling out how your lives will be divvied up when you get divorced. It’s hard enough making a marriage work without having a blueprint for its destruction drawn up before you go to the altar. Speaking of lawyers brings me to point nine and a half, which is: Avoid lawyers unless you have nothing to do with the rest of your life but kill time.

And, finally, point ten: smile. You’re one of the luckiest people in the world. You’re living in America. Enjoy it. When you’re out in the world, you’re going to find yourself surrounded by shouting, red-in-the-face, stomping-mad politicians, radio yakmeisters and, yes, sad to say, newspaper columnists, telling you “you never had it so bad” and otherwise trying to spoil your day. When they come at you with that, ladies and gentlemen, give them a wink and a smile and a good view of your departing back. And, as you stroll away, bend down and smell a flower.

Wendy Walker

Senior Executive Producer of
Larry King Live
, Senior Vice-President of CNN, and Author of
Producer

Positive Energy Is the New Pink

The older I get, the more convinced I am that there is something to positive and negative energy. I’m really living by this now. Some take it to a more intense level, such as not eating meat from unhappy animals who have lived uncivilized lives. They say that the unhappy energy goes into our bodies and causes us to be unhappy, too. There may be something to that, but I haven’t taken it that far yet. I’m simply trusting my intuition more these days, as I try to keep in the company of positive people and thus positive energy. I still like hamburgers.

When I wake up every morning, before I get out of bed, I remind myself of what I’m grateful for. It starts my day off right and makes me feel good about what’s in front of me. I think about my children and our health and all the love I have in my life. However hard we try to surround ourselves with people who are good and who care about us, though, there will always be those who, for some reason, have negative energy. They can be hurtful and cause you sadness or pain.

My grandmother used to say, “Kill them with kindness.” Another strategy is: “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” There is a lot of wisdom in these two old sayings. Instead of trying to get revenge, take the high road. Let it go. Instead of trying to get back at someone because she has hurt you, think of one nice thing about that person and put that out into the universe instead. If you don’t let it go, that person’s negativity will stay inside you, and that’s exactly where you don’t want that energy to be.

So the next time you’re hurt by someone, wish that person well in your heart and tell your brain to move on and think about something else that really matters. You will be amazed at how it releases your negative energy. People can’t control you if you won’t let them.

And, as much as you can, surround yourself with people who love you and want you to be happy. Do it. I simply will not compromise anymore with my heart. I avoid people who are not genuine and whose energy is toxic. Instead of internalizing the negative emotions of these people, forgive them for being unhappy souls. That goes for a friend, a co-worker, a lover, or even the guy who stole the parking space you were waiting so patiently for. Any frustration you can guard your body from, do it. Forgive, let go, breathe, and respond to these negative energies with love. You will be amazed at how much lighter, happier, and healthier you feel.