ColumnTips for dealing with female bullies.

One of my favorite stories is the one about my good friend and the little dog. When this friend, whose name is Carol, was a girl growing up in a suburban Seattle cul-de-sac, the neighborhood kids would often meet up after school in a patch of undeveloped woods nearby to play. One day, as she was running along the sidewalk to meet her friends, a neighbor’s Yorkshire terrier came charging down the path at her, and bit her hard. Carol didn’t think twice about how to respond. She picked her up and bit her back. No matter how many times I’ve heard it, I whoop when she tells me how totally shocked the little dog was. As you can imagine, that bitch never bit her again.

Bullies sure do come in all kinds of packages.

A bully can be an adorable Yorkie with a velveteen bow. A bully can be handsome, beautiful, rich, glamorous or more typically, feign a great approximation. This is so that you can later slam your head against the wall while asking yourself, “What the hell did I see in them?” A bully might be your neighbor, your mother-in-law, your business partner, your new best friend. Bullies may be do-gooding, world-saving, tree-hugging, down-and-out-helping, soup-ladling. A friend of mine knows a woman whose mother is a famous self-help guru. The woman herself is a psychotherapist; after many years in therapy she decided she might as well practice it. The reason she spent so many years in therapy is because her famous self-help guru mother hit her all the time.

Forget the bow. Ignore packaging, proceed to contents. Here’s how you know a bully: they bite.

Have you been bullied? I have – more than once, if you count having to live with roommates, and then there’s the one for the ages. My bully, my friend. She really had it all: money, warts, and herpes. I watched my bully cut every friend out of her life in the short time I had the misfortune of knowing her. Of course then it seemed an eternity, or at least a semester. I could have sworn she had made a list of everyone she knew, and one day decided to work her way down it, with the goal of leaving behind as much ruin and destruction to impress me as possible. When she severed ties with her best friend – who was terrified of her – over an argument about pleats on skirts, I reckoned my neck was up next. It was. Where I had once existed on a pedestal, I was now a bunion on the vamp of her progress, a sea urchin in the waters of her expression. Simply showing up to my life each morning caused her suffering. Couldn’t I wash my car more often? Couldn’t I change my ring tone? Did it matter if I had feelings and hopes and dreams or a separate different definitely provable-by-science autonomous existence apart from hers?

Faced with the inevitable path before me, I armed myself with psychology books from more than one trip to Barnes & Noble and consulted my people. Soon enough, having exhausted her supply of other people to chew on, she started biting me. Because I had prepared, I was able to walk away in a move that left her spluttering – I bit back – but what if she’d been my boss? Oh, that’s right, she was.

Who on earth are these people? Tina Fey called them Mean Girls, and they are everywhere, no matter how grown up we get. Naively, I had approached my very first bully with the plucky optimism of a community fundraiser. Soon, she needed me and my reliable niceness, and when you get to that point it’s a short trip to toast. I was but the earnest wheat germ, she, the flaring toaster.

Public service moment: Awareness of bullying has increased in recent years as our society has become more comfortable with acknowledging how bullying can be devastating, potentially scarring us for life. If you have a child who is being bullied, or if you yourself are in a situation you cannot get out of, or if the bullying has become abusive, this is not the best article for you. You should seek professional help now. The good news is that there is recourse in many cases; in fact, some states, such as Massachusetts, have even outlawed bullying. The trouble with bullying, though, is that as adults we can’t drag our bullies to the principal’s office.

How are we supposed to be women of principle and planet when we’ve got a yipping Yorkie on our butts? Easy. Really. When it comes to dealing with the garden variety mean girl, you do not need to read Sun Tzu. You do not need to possess Machiavellian insight. You do not even need to read every single one of the books I read (although please don’t tell the authors I said that). Here’s what you do need to know about your female bully:

1. Learn your bully. It won’t be hard. First, know that she is not well. She is really miserable. We are not talking about your friend with her flaws who lashed out that one time because her boyfriend dumped her. We are not talking about your bossy boss or your crazy client. We are talking core unwell, status Mother Mary. If you are sensitive to others, it can be easy to focus on their flaws, but remember that most people are basically good and decent, with occasional blips of stupid behavior. Learn to differentiate dramatic blips from toxic patterns.

2. But dear God, don’t be fascinated by her. If you’re a forensic dork like me, by all means, read twelve or twenty books on bullying. Google your heart out. But don’t get so sucked in to her neurosis or pathology that you fall for your bully. Bullies are really rather empty save for their pain, which is why they are unhappy, which is why they lash out. Translation: they aren’t that interesting. They have very little capacity for self-awareness. Oh, they may know they are mean and nasty – and she will probably even brag about it – but think about it. Since they’re rocking it so hard, it must be all they have. Your bully is but a vapid inedible puffball of mean, stuck on Repeat.

3. Find some compassion. I’m serious: she is miserable. I know it is very hard when someone is targeting you – hurting your business, or your good name, or just you – and really, really hard if you must spend a lot of time with this woman or if she pays your bills, but remember that she is miserable. If you can muster even the tiniest bit of compassion for her – and I am talking corn kernel – it will help you feel relief. Comfort. Happiness. Security. Acceptance. Warmth. Love. Have you experienced these things? Your bully hasn’t, at least not nearly enough to function. Happy people who feel safe and loved do not actively bother with controlling and hurting others. They just function.

4. But show no mercy. Compassion is essential to coping, and it’s also just good karma. But it’s for you, not her. Don’t feel compelled to help, mentor, teach or love her and by doing so, become complicit in your own abuse. She is not your case. She is not your concern. If you’re forced to engage with her for professional reasons or personal commitments, keep it as light and brief as possible, and don’t ever reach out to her in a spur of generosity. Forgiveness does not require masochism. No drunk texting your bully, baby.

5. Understand that she operates on one channel: hers. And it’s boring. You may seriously wonder if she has Asperger’s, or start to think that she has a hearing problem. How could anyone be so derivative, grandiose and obtuse? A bully could. Learn the traits of narcissism; the fat red flag is contempt, but there are eight more signs. Bullying is the calling card of the narcissist. Narcissists are self-absorbed to the point that they don’t recognize others as individuals with their own needs, and I am not talking about your cat. They’re both shallow and self-obsessed, but at least the cat doesn’t bite.

6. Love the one you’re with? Never. If you’re skilled at pacifying, whether from growing up with an abusive or addicted parent or managing child actors, you’re particularly at risk for doing this. Don’t try to be “the one” that your bully adores while everyone else gets the mean treatment. Eventually, your bully will turn on you, and it will hurt.

7. Walk away. Did you consider this? If the thought of never seeing your bully again gives you more joy than the thought of a bathtub full of calorie-free sea-salt and caramel chocolate truffles dipped in lottery tickets, fame, a flat stomach and true love, it’s time to walk away. We can get so wrapped up in our bullies and their bad behavior, we forget that just a few short months or years ago, we were living the charmed life free of Cruella. Just imagine: You can live that life again. Unless it’s your married mate or your boss, you can walk away fairly quickly and easily. Really. I promise. I know, you’re saying “But I just can’t, you don’t understand!” I do. Walk away. You will not die and you will not get sued. (And if you really fear for your life, see the above note about getting professional help.) Bullies can be smart; they can even be right. But they are never entitled to bite.

8. What a keeper! Here’s the other thing about bullies: they almost always come back. That’s because as narcissists, they have terrible memories in every sense – terrible in a way that thrills with its occasional laser focus, and terrible in a way that infuriates with its amnesiac spin. You can bite back, walk away, avoid, or simply suffer in silence, and they will always test the fences. Keep her on a short leash lest she keep you.

9. Pretend she is spectacularly stupid. Treat your bully as if she is at least a full quadrant on the IQ chart below Larry in Dumb and Dumber. We can spend infinite mind time asking “Why me? Why that? Why would she?” This is a waste of your energy. You are dealing with the emotional and intellectual equivalent of an office chair. Bullies often don’t know their bad behavior is bad, so don’t assume they know. The reason they’ve gotten so far in life behaving this way is because they’ve encountered a whole lot of people like you – that is, sane, normal folk – who all think “No one could possibly do this on purpose! Why me? Why that? Why would she?” Nice can get you a long way, but spice can get you further. So, when your bully lashes out, call it with confidence. Don’t be hostile; simply state that you recognize this behavior as aggressive and inappropriate, and you will not tolerate it because you don’t like to be treated that way. You’re not on a committee with her; this is not a review-the-behavior democracy. You are in charge, you define, you speak up, and that’s final. It’s so easy after you do it once, you’ll be annoyed that you didn’t do it sooner. It really works. Don’t yell, don’t coddle, don’t back down. Just express, and then shut up. Your bully will react in three ways: she will suddenly find a fascinating hole in the floor into which to crawl; she will erupt in screams and tears (don’t hug her), or she will act like you didn’t say a thing. But at least for that day, she will stop.

10. Don’t bite back too hard. A mean girl is really more bark than bite. Think about it: when someone is playing an abusive mind game with you, it only works if you participate. Bullying requires you to play the game, too. If you walk away, or take off the gear, neither one of you can play anymore. Seth Godin said it best: “Drop the ball.” (I wish I could find the permalink; if you do, tell me.) Realize that your bully is really quite weak – this is a little girl throwing a tantrum, not Maleficent directing the ozone layer. Walking away is shock enough to the bully, who has the emotional fortitude of a Yorkie. You’re just a shape or a shadow in her picture postcard world, so disrupting the mirage and stepping out of the frame is going to be deeply terrifying to her. Despite your overwhelming desire (believe me, I know), avoid layin’ it on thick with added helpings of vitriol or vengeance.

And good luck. There are so many nice girls, there’s just no time for mean. Find your true friends and together, you can do a lot, including calling off the dog or, when necessary, biting back.

P.S. My good friend Carol who bit the dog back is my mother. Thanks, Mom.

This is the latest installment in your editor’s column, The Insider’s Guide to Life, exploring topics such as media, culture, sex, politics, and anything else. Cheers and spellcheck!

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Did you see the archetypal serial-killer looking guy lurking around our place the other morning? He was wearing a hoodie drawn low over his eyes. He might as well have been holding up a sign that say “Cross the street or I will eat your liver with fava beans.” Yes, I crossed the street. After I watched him continue past our house. No, I didn’t notice the small dog he was walking. Maybe if the dog had been wearing a hoodie, I would have.

But am I more fearful than the average woman? Hyperbole aside, no. I’m not afraid to leave the house alone, nor am I afraid to do recreational activities by myself. I do admit to a heightened awareness of my surroundings, as I was raised by a former FBI agent. (One of my best friends is also the daughter of a G-Man and she reacts to situations exactly the same way as I do. High five, progeny of J. Edgar Hoover.) But am I more fearful than my husband? Yes, it would seem that I am.

The world is unquestionably a dangerous place for women. The “gift of fear” is often bandied about in pop culture without really revealing what that means. Yes, it’s a good to be on your guard in a dark parking lot. It’s a good to check to make sure the shady-looking person you just passed on the street isn’t following you. It’s good to lock your doors at night. But I’ve never thought of fear the same way I’d think about, say, a charitable donation or a new handbag. It doesn’t feel like a “gift.”

Fear likely doesn’t feel like a gift to the people for whom it has become debilitating. Anxiety disorders, phobias, post-traumatic stress disorders or neurotic fear, are very real and best addressed by medical professionals. Nor am I talking about the fears someone might experience living under totalitarian rule. Rather, I’m talking about the natural, everyday concerns that surround our lives which can be rooted in, simply, fear of the unknown.

These are fears than can pervade women’s lives. But when do they hold us back? The fear inspired by a nightmare is probably the closest many people get to real terror. Women often attest to a gut-wrenching explosion of terror if they wake up thinking someone is standing over their beds.

But if you think about it, isn’t it the same feeling some of us have carried through our lives? It was the fear we felt as children when we thought something was under our beds. The fear some of us we felt as adolescents when we dreamed of walking into school naked. This became a fear of career failure, a fear of a young mother, a fear of the bogeyman on the street. Namely, it’s senseless, primal, reasonless fear – and often, it seems to call on women.

What would a world without fear look like? Via ScienceBlog, the Journal Current Biology recently reports on a woman who cannot experience fear. She is a 44-year-old American who suffers from an extremely rare genetic condition called Urbach-Wiethe Disease. She can feel other emotions but not fear. She’s been studied for almost two decades by researchers. According to the journal, “based on interviews with her and her three children, the authors suggest that she probably has not experienced fear at all throughout the whole duration of her adult life, despite having encountered an unusually high number of traumatic and life-threatening events.”

This woman has had a knife held to her throat by a drug addict and was once nearly killed in a domestic violence attack. And yet, she is completely unafraid. After all, as Discovery points out, fear is nothing but “a chain reaction in the brain that starts with a stressful stimulus and ends with the release of chemicals that cause a racing heart, fast breathing and energized muscles, among other things, also known as the fight-or-flight response.” This woman’s fear response doesn’t work.

Do we envy her…or fear her? What would our lives look like without fear?

Images: Claus Rebler, showbits

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A friend of mine – a therapist in a halfway house – once described a harrowing incident where a burly Hell’s Angel guy barged into a group therapy session, hollering and waving his arms around like a maniac. He was was having an “episode” that would’ve scared the bejeezus out of the toughest cookie on the block.

“Use your manners, would ya?” said the group therapy leader. “Turn around and come back in quietly.”

And then – fuming and puffing – Mr. Rage just…stopped. “Oh. Okay then.” He left the room, re-opened the door, walked in and sat down in the nearest empty seat. Calmly.

Just like that.
Standards work wonders.

When we routinely accept people’s poor behavior, we block the chances for radical change to occur. Excuses repress clarity. Justifications crowd out transformation.

I once worked with someone who was bi-polar manic depressive, and we always chalked up their behavior to their illness. We let them off the hook for all sorts of crappy behavior. But nasty is nasty, and mean is mean, and my standards are higher than that.

So next time your mother is a bit well, you know. Or your grouchy neighbor is a grouch, as usual. Or your super-stressed boss loses her cool because she’s, well, super-stressed. Call it at face value. Don’t let foul manners off the hook. Bad behavior is bad behavior – all afflictions and psych 101 labels aside.

Common sense is a mighty powerful agent for change.

Editor’s Note: Danielle LaPorte is the creator of WhiteHotTruth.com, which has been called “the best place on-line for kick-ass spirituality.” She is the author of The Fire Starter Sessions: A Digital Experience for Entrepreneurs, an inspirational speaker, former think tank exec, and news show commentator. You can read all of Danielle’s EcoSalon guest articles here, and find her on Twitter @daniellelaporte.

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1. Diversify your feedback-collection methods.
Nothing like asking a fifteen year old and a seventy-five year old what they think about you, your business plan, or your last relationship decision.

2. Hit up the experts.
Take your CEO to lunch for a preemptive performance review and some tips on how to gracefully scramble the ladder. Ask a gifted writer what they really think of your pitch letter. Hire a stylist to purge your swollen closet. It may sting, it may be a major relief, but either way, expert opinions will propel you to the top of your game.

3. Work with people who are savvier, speedier and more accomplished than you.
Last year, I advised a mega-stellar online magazine that has the #1 community forum on the ‘net – a super savvy duo who are #1 in their industry and have one of the finest business plans I’ve seen, and a kick-ass marketing forum of some of the best and brightest marketers, motivators, and communicators on earth. With each client, I had to leap further to meet my intuition, dig deeper into the industry, and listen more actively. They made me sweat, spin and soar. I learned some new dance moves.

4. Stand naked in front of a full-length mirror.
Don’t leave until you can say three deeply loving things about your physique, the miracle of your health, and your full-bloom humanity.

5. Dust off the chopping block.
Fire your most irritating client, team member, or energy-abusing friend. You’ll wished you’d done it a long time ago.

6. Kill the chatter.
Turn off the TV. Commute without talk radio. Remove the iPod earbuds. The silence may shatter you. With our addiction to noise and distraction held at bay, our painful beauty and genius has room to surface.

7. Underachieve.
Attention, Type-As and workaholics. You are hereby invited to slack off. For one week, cryogenically freeze your to-do list. (I know, your palms are sweating at the very thought.) Set aside your novel, your knitting project, your non-critical responsibilities. Be late just because you wanted an extra five minutes in the hot shower.

8. As the Dalai Lama says, “Love until it hurts.”
Personally, this would mean volunteering at an old age home. I can hardly bear the wastage and scarcity of dignity that characterize most nursing homes. It slays me. I always leave a total wreck, with renewed appreciation for…everything.

9. Say no.
Only offer the simple explanation that “it just doesn’t feel right.”

10. Say yes.
Just for the hell of it. Whimsy rarely leads to social exile, destruction or doom. Be expansive – and see what unfurls.

Editor’s Note: Danielle LaPorte is the creator of WhiteHotTruth.com, which has been called “the best place on-line for kick-ass spirituality.” She is the author of The Fire Starter Sessions: A Digital Experience for Entrepreneurs, an inspirational speaker, former think tank exec, and news show commentator. You can read all of Danielle’s EcoSalon guest articles here, and find her on Twitter @daniellelaporte.

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Here’s a mighty powerful question: What’s it going to take?

We usually mutter that question in dire circumstances. Worst case scenarios. Rock-bottom situations. What’s it going to take for you to wake up? What’s it going to take for me to stop? What’s it going to take for them to realize?

But life is always an urgent circumstance, when you think about it. Birth – miraculous. Survival – miraculous. Death – inevitable. Suffering – optional. Life – urgent.

I wonder what my days would be like if I approached my happiness with the same sense of urgency that I dedicate to deadlines and to-do’s.

Like, I’ve GOT to meet my dancing quota! Wild horses couldn’t keep me from lunch with my girlfriends! Come hell or high water, I WILL get a facial and lay in the sun! Most important deadlines: to meander, to laugh until I snortle by noon every day, to make pizza with my son.

So, in the spirit of urgent vitality – and not knowing if today will be my last – I’m asking myself, lovingly but firmly: LaPorte, what’s it going to take for you to be incredibly joyful? What’s it going to take for you to make an evolutionary leap as an artist, lover, mother, friend, human? What’s it going to take to get you to walk to the lake that’s four minutes from your house? What’s it going to take to get you on the dance floor? You want to eat life whole? To know God? To radiate pure love? Urgently, now: what’s it going to take?

I think it’s going to take everything I’ve got. Deep breath. Pause. Softening. And, smiling. Because I’ve got what it takes. As do you.

True desires rise from rich capacity.

Editor’s Note: Danielle LaPorte is the creator of WhiteHotTruth.com, which has been called “the best place on-line for kick-ass spirituality.” She is the author of The Fire Starter Sessions: A Digital Experience for Entrepreneurs, an inspirational speaker, former think tank exec, and news show commentator. You can read all of Danielle’s EcoSalon guest articles here, and find her on Twitter @daniellelaporte.

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Last year, I turned 40.

Impossibly surreal. Mystically bizarre. Just yesterday I was fleeing high school, with shoulder pads and stilettos underneath my graduation gown; absolutely certain that the world was my oyster and that extra-strength hair mousse could carry me through any encounter. I can hardly believe that I can say, “twenty years ago…” in reference to anything I was alive to witness.

Dear Danielle at 20:

• Credit cards are (mostly) evil.
• Algebra is (really) useless.
• If he doesn’t stay until morning, he’s probably married, deeply insecure (or both).
• Talk is cheap. And action is priceless.
• Tragedy happens. Yes, everything happens for a reason, but life can be cruel and wrenching and while it all comes out in the cosmic wash, some souls collide.
• There is no soul mate. This won’t be easy to hear, because you are longing for The One 24/7. But, guess what? The One is The One because you say he (or she) is. And that’s way more liberating and empowering than anything preordained or supposedly destined. And while we’re dissing cosmic romanticism..
• There’s no such thing as destiny. Sorry. Life really is what you make it. Oh, and another thing…
• If you don’t kiss girls in your twenties, you’ll probably never get around to trying it out. You should try it out.
• Diplomacy is overrated.
• Mistakes do happen.
• Go to more concerts.
• Those books you lent out? You’re not getting them back.
• If your boss tries to French kiss you, that’s…uncool.
• Kindness is one of the most powerful natural resources there is…infinitely renewable.
• Your heart, your heart, your heart is where it’s at.
• When you turn 40, you shall be rocking like never before, grateful for absolutely everything, and you will finally, finally feel like you interlock with the planet – minus the shoulder pads.

Editor’s Note: Danielle LaPorte is the creator of WhiteHotTruth.com, which has been called “the best place on-line for kick-ass spirituality.” She is the author of The Fire Starter Sessions: A Digital Experience for Entrepreneurs, an inspirational speaker, former think tank exec, and news show commentator. You can find her on Twitter @daniellelaporte.

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You call it a crisis. He calls it a quest. As euphemisms go, his term is a far more romantic description of the turmoil surrounding the transitional phase. Don’t be fooled. When you are in the thick of it, the only tangible aspect of his so-called quest is the one for money to pay the mortgage once he decides life is too short to earn it the hard way.

It happens to most male adults from ages 40 to 45 but can be experienced even at 60, and was described by Carl Jung as a normal part of the maturing process. How do you spot the signs?

First, know that the crisis du jour looks different than the crisis of yore, when madman hubby started feeling his mortality, dumped his wife for the young blond secretary and stole from the cookie jar to buy a red Corvette. In the era of strapped funds and males earning status from owning a hybrid or composting system, the 2011 crisis manifests more subtly before your innocent eyes until the picture comes clearly into focus and you get it. He is no longer the man you married. He has morphed into a balding college kid with bad taste in music.

Here are some of the changes you are likely to see:

1. Refusal to plan for the future

He balks about discussing that European cruise you have scheduled for 2012, arguing he wants to start staying in the present, ignoring that voice that tells him to get up, get out of bed, earn a good living and buy you jewelry. Not looking forward is part of the crisis. It often involves depression which can trigger the crisis in the first place.

2. Actions to recapture his youth

He is riding a bike full time, not to spare the planet, but to conjure those boyish college days on the bike path, backpack strapped on, balancing without gripping the handlebars, wind blowing his recently replaced hair. He is showering less often, not just to conserve resources but because dudes are sometimes too busy riding their fierce bikes and doing junk and can’t be bothered. It annoys you, but the baristas he has befriended don’t seem to mind.

3. Drastic wardrobe redux

Part of his midlife chuck-it list includes ridding his closet of cumbersome ties and embracing a more casual, sporty look, which may or may not include hooded sweatshirts, more fitted jeans and – if the crisis is one capable of spinning out of control – flip flops (sans the pedicure!). Backward baseball caps, once a red flag of the syndrome, have been outsourced by the ubiquitous beanie. If he begins wearing a beanie, begin emailing single ex boyfriends you let get away as a backup plan.

4. Seeks enrichment

He signs up for a seminar on killing chickens humanely and thinks it’s pretty sexy recounting it for you, how he held the bird in a way to work it into a trance before plucking the feathers and ripping off its head. He learns Mandarin, skydiving, how to cobble shoes or master wholesome Basque cooking. You are not invited to join him at the various classes because he needs to find himself and not be bogged down by the story the two of you have created.

5. He talks about quitting his job

You spot the course curriculum for city college where he says he will get a teaching degree and quit being a wage slave. You sweat bullets worrying he will quit his job before formulating a real plan. You should worry. We all hate work from time to time – especially if it is complicated by having to interact with other humans – but a crisis takes it to the next level. He won’t be on the planet forever (revisit Lester Burnham’s American Beauty saga), so imparting knowledge as a teacher or working at a vegan bakery seems just the thing.

6. Dabbles in ill considered romances

Finding lipstick marks on his neon yellow polyurethane-laminated nylon bike jacket. Who’s the ho he’s biking with, you want to know! Is it one of the baristas he met while setting up shop on his laptop in the free wiki shop? Is it his new yoga teacher or his colonic hydro therapist? Part of the crisis is not being young anymore and to prove he can still get action. It’s getting hot in here, but it is just your steam shower.

7. Changes music taste

Out with Norah Jones and Bad Company and in with Kimya Dawson, Kanye West and Jay-Z. He never goes anywhere without his iPod and when you have date nights, he plugs it into its iHome in his new VW Rabbit. He downloads tunes for you, as well, saying you should convert your listening to get more current. What ever happened to Rod Stewart?

8. Cries during movies or when watching Glee

A crisis not only involves symptoms of depression but hormonal swings that are also witnessed after open heart surgery when a man feels his mortality and has the scars to prove it. So, crying during grief-stricken Rabbit Hole might make sense but for God’s sake, while watching Yogi Bear steal picnic baskets? Get a grip, fella!

9. Starts keeping a journal

Sure, journal writing is highly recommended as a method for young, budding writers to loosen up and get thoughts onto paper, but the midlife crisis journaling is a different animal. If you saw A Beautiful Mind, you know what I mean. The crisis journal spells out theories for what happened before and after the Big Bang and how to solve all the mysteries of the universe, plus cursory ideas scribbled down for screenplays, cursory ideas scribbled down for novels and Broadway musicals. Sometimes, they contain notes on how to kill a chicken.

10. Infomercial purchases

He has become a sucker for products being peddled at 4 a.m. when he is most vulnerable. Infomercials didn’t become a $256 billion industry by accident. It’s all the middle age men on quests! He is up and can’t get back to sleep due to changing sleep patterns that exhaust him and add to the depression and hormone swings. Among his favorites: Snuggies for men (sometimes he cries during the ads); the Total Gym cause Christie Brinkley and Chuck Norris to look so damn fit for their age; and of course, anything peddled by Kevin Trudeau.

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Beer goggles. They are mysterious. Like Loch Ness or Sasquatch, some deny their existence. These deniers are usually women with impeccably pressed cotton shifts who don’t know the hell that is smeared mascara. But the rest of us know better.

These some, who shall remain nameless, may kick back a beer or five and wake up with a broken high heel and dim recollections of dancing on a bar. And they might admit to wearing beer goggles from time to time. Even though we (I mean, THEY) know that beer goggles are really just a product of our inebriated imaginations. Right?

Wrong! New evidence shows that beer goggles are real. Men and women in real-life white coats have performed experiments proving their existence. Discovery News recently reported that beer goggles are in fact a fact of nature. And apparently, it is all about the symmetry of the face.

Symmetry plays an important part in defining beauty. Experts point out that symmetry in the face is all about the human eye recognizing “averageness” – that is, someone like Angelina Jolie is considered très magnifique because she really just has a more symmetrical, average face. We’re all hard-wired to like symmetry, as our brains think symmetrical faces connote reproductive fitness. People with less symmetrical faces are thought by our evolutionary subconscious to have a poorer health background.

In other words, most of us are bee-bopping along looking for symmetrical “fit” faces. But what happens when we drink? Apparently, we throw evolutionary behavior down the tubes. A recent study reveals that drinking prevents us from detecting asymmetrical faces. Therefore, our inebriated eyes see people we might not soberly find attractive “¦ attractive. So if someone looks like a Picasso’s Woman with a Flower, if you drink they might look like Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.

Lewis Halsey of Roehampton University in London conducted this study on drunken attraction. With some colleagues, Halsey went over to some campus bars to take notes. They showed symmetrical and asymmetrical faces to drunk and sober students. The sober students were more able to detect symmetrical faces and showed greater preferences for them.

And the umbrella on our cocktail? Apparently women are more prone to beer goggles than men. Experts think this is because men tend to be more visually oriented than women and more stimulated by who they see.

And what will this mean to all of us who wake up next Fred Flintstone after going to bed with Brad Pitt? Yes, it really was our beer goggles. Now if we could only find a way to make them match our eye makeup.

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I just got back from lunch with my boyfriend. Sitting over eggs and turkey bacon, I spent much of the time people watching – aka idly wondering if I could get away with an eggs, turkey bacon and cupcake lunch. Then I came home to see half my pony tail was flowing freely in the breeze and had been all afternoon. (Interesting how significant others can be unaware of the importance of alerting you to insane hair.) Yes, I had a bad hair day. But I didn’t know it. So does it count?

When a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound? Yeah, sure, whatever – more importantly, if you have a bad hair day and don’t know it, does it exist? In my aforementioned case, no. But research shows that bad hair days are indeed all in our head. One study from Cornell reveals the “spotlight effect” is that causes us to zero in on our stray locks. Cornell University psychologist Thomas Gilovich sent a group of students into a room sporting Barry Manilow t-shirts. While the apparently tortured students thought the world was laughing at them, only 23 percent of the other students even noticed the t-shirts.

Dr. Gilovich calls this the “spotlight effect,” which has its origins in childhood. We are much more egocentric as kids, and apparently that never completely fades. As Dr. Gilovich tells it, “People assume the social spotlight shines on them more brightly than it really does.”

And yes, we all have those “friends” who seem to think it is their duty to inform you that your hair looks flat/frizzy/fearful. These are friends who always point out if you look skinny, who remain silent if you’ve dared to be bloated, and who like to point out the labels of the clothes they are wearing. I call them “the crowbarrers” and resign them to Dr. Gilovich’s 23 percent.

So if bad hair days really are in our heads, what does that say about our experiences with them? As Psychology Today reports, women “found that they felt less hostile, ashamed, nervous, guilty or jittery, depending on the hair products they used.” But before we regulate women’s mind to such simple shallowness – the research cited in this report was done by Proctor and Gamble, makers of multiple hair products.

So next time you feel like your hair won’t cooperate, take a moment to honor the brave Barry Manilow-saluting students of Dr. Gilovich’s study – and remember that most people won’t even notice. And if someone does? Point out that they are just exhibiting their own egocentricity. And then hand them a crowbar.

Image: papalars

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There’s a cello sitting in my office, sadly neglected and getting dusty. I bought it nearly two years ago because I’ve always wanted to learn how to play, but because my fingers are nimble on a computer keyboard, they fumble the movements needed to make anything but an awful abrasive sound with strings and a bow. 

I soon gave up, but perhaps I shouldn’t have – as practice really does make perfect (or something close to it), according to a recent study.

It isn’t necessarily natural-born talent, luck or any of those seemingly mystical qualities that make certain people wildly successful where others aren’t. It’s “sustained, intense, and deliberate practice in a particular area of expertise, in order to improve performance and cognitive thinking levels,” says study author Dr. Robert A. Baron.

Even experience doesn’t count as much as dogged, dedicated, repetitive practice.

“Across many different activities, most individuals show relatively rapid increments in performance up to levels they and others view as acceptable. This is then followed by a plateau and no further gains,” notes the study, currently published in the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal (PDF).

In other words, if you want to be really good at something, raise the bar. The kind of deliberate practice that gets results is carefully focused; you’ve got to be fully absorbed in it, constantly challenging yourself and demanding accountability. Set specific goals, raise those goals as you go, reflect on what you’ve learned and evaluate the results.

Oh yeah – and don’t worry if it’s not all fun. In fact, scholars in the field of expert performance describe the kind of practice that yields extraordinary results “the opposite of fun”. No pain, no gain? It’s a cliché, but it’s true. I’ll have to remember this myself the next time my back hurts from sitting in the correct position with my instrument and my fingers are blistered from the strings.

So, in sum: don’t let a lack of experience or natural talent get you down, dedicate yourself to your goal every day and never accept “good enough”. This attitude could bring you success in practically any kind of new venture – whether you’re starting a business, learning a craft or getting in shape.

Image by: Firepile

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