As I walked into the furniture store, the salesman waved me over, smiling.

“Did you get your free gift?!?”

I asked him what the gift was, and he said, “Oh, it’s a secret! But I’m sure you’ll love it! Just fill out this quick survey.”

I completed the survey and he handed me my free gift.

An amazing, fantastic, one-of-a-kind….welcome mat.

“This is my free gift?” I asked, disappointed.

“Yeah!” he said. “Isn’t it something?”

“Oh, it’s something, all right,” I said, and wafted off to look at futons.

Not everything lives up to its hype.

People may let us down, but perhaps the most persistent critic in our lives is the voice in our own heads. You know the voice I mean – the Negative Naysayer.

Not so much a voice-over as a voice-under of sorts.

That voice just under the surface that gets under your skin. On your case. On your nerves.

Perhaps somewhere in the ether, there’s a Negative Naysayer Voice-Under Artists’ Union. I imagine them all getting together, glowering, to give each other a hard time.

The things they say inside your head never add anything positive to your life:

  • Took you long enough!
  • That’s not how it’s supposed to be done.
  • Sure wasn’t your finest hour, was it?

There are times when things don’t go as planned, but there’s no Litmus Test of Life. I’ll have to check the law books, but I do believe that you still get to be in the human race, even if your socks don’t match.

As far as I know,  you’re allowed to walk the earth despite the spinach stuck in your teeth.

Perfect people are boring to be around, anyway, don’t you think?

Babe Ruth said it best: “Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.”