The Little Red Handbook of Life

The Little Red Handbook of Life: A Guide to Living a Fuller and Richer life Vince Calandra Chapters ● Why This Handbook Can Help? ● Ego: The Cinderblock Wall ● The Power of the Universe ● Meditation: Finding Your True Inner Self and Destiny ● All you Need is Love ● I Am that I Am ● Good Vibrations ● Less is More ● Smile, Look, and Listen ● How can I serve? ● Dealing with Crisis ● Doing no Harm ● Little Miracles ● Start with the End in Mind ● The Long and Winding Road: Getting on the Path to your Joyous Self ● Addendum: Important Life Quotes Dedicated to my wife, Moleka, and our three lovely daughters, Sophia, Isabella, and Arianna. It is my profound hope that this writing will come to help you in your lives. Why This Handbook Can Help? We live busy lives. Such is the case in a modern world. As for myself, I find myself busy with my career, my wife busy with her career; my daughters are busy with both school and extracurricular activities. The day is done in the blink of an eye. We sleep. Then, we get to do it all over again. This is the treadmill of life. Millions, perhaps billions, of people live this life. For the so-called “successful”, which I will discuss, the small amounts of open time in their calendar are filled with “things”. The things may be the next event, the next party, the next trip, the next school event, the next social dinner and on-and on. Largely, we pretend to have fun in these brief moments, and this is not to say that we do not derive joy from these moments. However, it is quite evident that those who live busy lifestyles lack any presence in the moment to truly experience and enjoy those items we place on the open slots in the calendar of our life. So, we come back from a week of vacation, with photos shared on Facebook, and yet for the vast majority we are still empty. As empty as the day we planned the trip, took the trip, experienced the trip, and traveled home. This is truth and is the kind of tragedy associated with the modern human experience. Perhaps you stood on the beach to pose for an Instagram photo, yet very little of the experience of beach “sticks” with you. You stood in front of the Eiffel Tower and captured the moment but then it was on to the next thing to see, the next place to eat, the next hotel in which to sleep, the airport, and home. Blink. The trip is done. Are you happier? My guess is no. Yes, you added to your life experiences, but largely while these moments do become memories, we all get right back on the treadmill of life. Sleep, work, eat, and repeat. Repeat and repeat. If you are fortunate and live into your 80’s, you get roughly 30,000 days. We are all mortal and nothing can change that fact. So, the time you have is an absolute. Perhaps for some this number is higher and I hope with all of my heart that you do indeed get to enjoy more days. For some, it is less. Perhaps fewer days are just part of your fate. Perhaps something comes into your life that is unexpected like disease or an accident. Similarly, I hope with all my heart that this does not happen to you. That said, it is a fact that some who read this book will have less than 30,000 days, and for some, more. For some, the quality of your life over that 30,000 day period will be better than for others. This is the reason I wrote this book. Why? It is my simple and very genuine hope that it will serve as a guide to help your life be a far fuller and joyful one, whatever be the quantity of days. That your days, whatever the number be, will be infinitely better than the step-and-repeat days you are experiencing today. No one gives you a handbook to life. Your parents, should you be fortunate, did their very best to provide a compass for you. Some will provide a moral compass. Others may provide a direction for your life, based upon their experience and seek to very genuinely help set you on a course that they believe will make you most happy. There is sincerity in most parenting, yet the subject of life for the majority of parents will not be well understood. You see, they in fact are on the treadmill of life trying to raise you and do the very best they can to set you on their personal belief of the “right path”. This is the process that happens for the most fortunate of children. Less fortunate children might not be blessed to have loving guidance whatsoever. I am not a god nor am I a trained psychologist. I have not run experiments with empirical data that I can show you. I am simply a person. I am, more precisely, a pentagenerian with an accumulation of experiences over some roughly two-thirds of those 30,000 days. My wish for you is to absorb the simply advice provided in this handbook so you can avoid my mistakes, put your life on a better and more fulfilling path, and find joy in your days ahead. That’s it. And so, I give you the gift of life. This is perhaps the greatest gift one human being can give to another. I would like you to envision that through my simple wisdoms and truths uncovered that I actually extended your allotted 30,000 days by making them not more in quantity, but more in quality. I hope to convey advice that will make your days more meaningful and full. Of course, I could never add to anyone’s day total, but my prayer is that I enriched each and every one of those days in a way that will extend your experience of this life given us. As such, I hope to expanded your field of possibilities and make more of your life experience. Read. Understand. Then, go forth and make your life wonderful.