Monday Morning Motivator: BETTER THAN SHE’S EVER BEEN...

BETTER THAN SHE’S EVER BEEN...

I betcha Spring is best this year

Better than she’s ever been

Or tried to be...

Like warmer and wearing a great big grin

And full of gin....and tonic.

I betcha she comes swingin’ in

Takes a bow, does a spin,

Then holds her pose

And waits...

for the applause

So raise your glass,

Give her a cheer

(Okay, she was late but she made it here!)

Then maybe she’ll come sooner

Like, next year...

I wrote the first stanza of this little poem when I lived in Washington (and just decided to finish it today.) I was about 24 years old...and it was spring. I had a job I really liked (writing motivational radio spots for the famous retired football coach of the Oklahoma Sooners, Bud Wilkinson, who’d become head of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness) - and was dating a cute guy (who wrote speeches for Sargent Schriver, head of the Peace Corps.) I expected nothing but the best from a DC spring. And it was...gorgeous. But that was way before I met our spring - this spring - the spring who came so late we’d almost given up on her. And what I know about people, especially women (myself included) is that positive reinforcement works. So right as we are, about how wrong she was to come so late - we’ve got to make a big fuss that she showed up at all....

So when you walk outside on that first, gorgeous, warm, soft morning - reach your arms out and say out loud, “Just in time, kiddo! Thanks for showing up....” Because there are a lot of springs in your future and you’ve got to take ‘em as they come: late/early, long/short, wet/dry - and somehow make 'em totally fabulous. “Like warmer and wearing a great big grin...and full of gin and tonic.” You can do it.