LIVIN' ON SOMEDAY I'LL by Terry L. Sumerlin One of the nice things about our ... ... is that we get to see ... go through the various stages of life. In some cases, we even give f
LIVIN' ON SOMEDAY I'LL
by Terry L. Sumerlin
One of the nice things about our 47-year-old barbershop is that we get to see customers go through the various stages of life. In some cases, we even give first haircuts to those whose grandfathers got their first haircuts at J.B.’s.
It’s quite interesting to watch the little fellows, as they become accustomed to the new experience. Generally, we find they get more worked up over the second haircut than they do the first. Yet, after they settle into the routine, they start looking forward to playing with the toys and to receiving gum or a lollipop after their haircut. Then they simply display the happy, carefree disposition of little boys. They don’t worry about being happy. They’re just happy. At this stage of their lives, the hokey pokey is pretty much what it’s all about.
However, as these little boys become teenagers, their upbeat attitude often changes. Some of them become infected with the same attitude that plagues most adults. It’s an attitude that postpones happiness through a “someday I’ll…” approach.
With such a mindset a person feels that happiness will come someday, when certain conditions are met. The boy (or girl) may feel that happiness will occur when he graduates. Then the thought changes to, “When I go off to college.” In college, he wishes he could get through, and get on with life. Then he realizes that, for happiness, he needs a JOB to go with his Ph.D. Following that, he would be happy if he could just get married, have children, own a business, get out of debt, retire or travel. Someday, everything will be great!
Stephen Leacock, the Canadian humorist, said it very well: “Life, we learn too late, is in the living, in the tissue of every day and every hour.”
Dr. Maxwell Maltz, author of “Psycho-Cybernetics,” observed that once the mind accepts the concept of conditional happiness one will never be happy. This is because once that requirement is met the mind, being so conditioned, will immediately go to work to set up the next prerequisite for happiness. Thus, an endless, futile cycle.
Maltz, therefore, concluded that if a person is going to be happy it will never be because of something – it will always be period! So, maybe there’s more to the hokey pokey philosophy than we thought.
BARBER-OSOPHY: Mature people have a childlike, happy disposition
Copyright 2003, Sumerlin Enterprises.
Terry L. Sumerlin, owner of J.B.'s Barber Shop in San Antonio, Texas, is known as "The Barber-osopher," and appears nationally as a humorist and motivational speaker.
Permission is granted for you to copy this article for distribution as long as the above copyright and contact information is included. Please reference or include a link to www.barber-osophy.com.
Thinkin' And Thankin'
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After his haircut, the young man stepped behind my chair and, without saying a word, hugged me. I must say, in all humility, it was a great haircut. It wasn’t the haircut, though, that brought about the hug. It was the result of a bond we had established during the haircut.
Breaking Out Of Jail
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