Megamorphosis: How to Be Happier Right Now

Copyright © 2009 by Michael Yergin

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical or mental problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself—which is your constitutional right—the author and the publisher(s) assume no responsibility for your actions.

ISBN: 978-0-595-48218-4 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-0-595-50968-3 (cloth)

ISBN: 978-0-595-60306-0 (ebk)

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Contents

Life’s Confessions

Don’t Read This Book

Be Happier Right Now

Crisis

Reality

Happiness Booth

Everyone’s an Author!

Sensitivity Groups

No One Likes Advice

You Are Good Enough

There Are No Dumb Questions

Why We Are Unhappy

Youth is Wasted on the Young

Why Are We Here?

It’s Never Too Late

Very Cool People

Laugh, Smile, and Relax

I Feel Circular

Self-Help Garbage

Cookie Monster, Bert, and Ernie

Happy for No Reason

Spirituality

Stop and Smell the Roses

The Quiet One

Stress

The Answer Always Lies within You

Project Empathy

Certificate for FREE Consultation

If Your Life is Perfect

Patience, Thought, Behavior

Kaizen

It is Up to You

17+ Reasons to Be Happier

This book is dedicated to my mother, father, and late brother, Paul.

Acknowledgments

I am deeply indebted to the following people: Arch and Babe Yergin, Patricia E. Brickhouse, Felicia Dechter, Phil Corboy, Fred Charmanara, Bita Fakoori, Steve and Peggy Lombardo, Stella Foster, Jackie Mason, John Colletti, Kathy O’Malley-Piccone, Hugo Ralli, George Cozzi, Mark Wagner, Paul Bowen, Mike Lakani, Nicki and Jim Puente, David Michael Abrams, Mrs. George Halas Jr., John Valentino, Bill Harris, Thomas Herold, Wayne W. Dyer, Mary Beth Danner, Sandra Fleis, Stephen J. Cannell, Mike Ditka, Shelley Berger Dooley, Robert Shulman, Wendy Yergin, Bill Kurtis, Brian Schemp, David Keith Abrams, Caryn Miller, Mary Wikel, Pat Tuite, Joe Arpaio, Phil Gordon, Richard Daley, George and Barbara Bush, Jim Edgar, John Porter, Jerry Reinsdorf, Ernie Banks, Dan Rostenkowski, Sirio Maccioni, Michael Kong, Marioly Adkins, Bill Zwecker, Makenzie Corbett, Andi Theriault, Louise L. Hay, Elizabeth Gilbert, Janet Evanovich, Noam Chomsky, W. Edwards Deming, Mort Felder, Diane Hales, Anne Harrington, Walter Isaacson, Richard Kadison, Tim Kazurinsky, Andrew Keen, Gordon Livingston, Morley Safer, Marci Shimoff, Oprah Winfrey, Dennis Palumbo, Debra Davies, Douglas Cipriano, Barack Obama, Ram Dass, Joel Pierson, Heather Norborg, David Weiner, Tony Navarro, Lee Flaherty, Robert Maurer, Jerry Lazar, Steven Pinker, and Ronald Gibbs.

Permission to use certain excerpts from books and magazines is gratefully appreciated from the following: Hay House, The Power of Intention, by Wayne W. Dyer; Hay House, Power vs. Force, by David Hawkins; Fawcett Book/The Random House Publishing Group, Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill; Journal of The American Medical Association—article entitled: Mounting Student Depression Taxing Campus Mental Health Services, by Rebeca Voelker; Written By—article entitled Kaizen for Writers, by Jerry Lazar. iUniverse, Thoughts After the First, by Michael L. Yergin; Chicago Financial Publications, Wealth Building in the 90s—What Wall Street Won’t Tell You, by Michael L. Yergin.

Photo credits courtesy of the following: Chicago White Sox, Chicago Cubs, Major League Baseball, State of Illinois—Governors Office, Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, WGN Television, Chicago Tribune Company, the Official White House Photographer, Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, Chicago Social Magazine, CS, the Goodman Theatre, the Kim Foundation, Channel 26 TV, WEVD AM Stereo-1050-New York, The Michael Yergin Show, Skyline-Lerner Publications, Noreen Heron, Felicia Dechter, Michael Yergin, Barnes and Noble-Chicago, Chicago Sun-Times.

Foreword

Life’s Confessions 

by Patricia E. Brickhouse, widow of

Hall of Fame broadcaster Jack Brickhouse

At the ripe old age of nine, Michael was suspended from school for a day for writing and selling a one-page newspaper (five cents a copy), because it alleged Michael had witnessed the school principal fooling around with his secretary. But Michael was upbeat and positive and very busy that day. He was already a budding entrepreneur and had other projects that required his attention. He had some of the girls in his neighborhood making and selling potholders—primarily to their parents—for twenty-five cents. Michael had capitalized the business with a loan of twenty dollars from his parents to buy looms and materials. And he was already involved in broadcasting. He had a Citizens Band Radio and did a live radio show every day, much to the consternation of his neighbors, who complained that his pre-pubescent voice was coming in over their black-and-white televisions.

At nineteen, now in college, Michael was writing for the school newspaper, and he was also helping his friend, Bill, start a new FM radio station, selling advertising time, sometimes for as much as two dollars for a sixty-second commercial. When he wasn’t selling time, he spun records for the station as a DJ. These were the days of the Vietnam War and Kent State. A guy named James Kuen, a student at Columbia University, had just published a bestseller about the political unrest prevalent among Michael’s peers. Michael’s Cousin Daniel had recently graduated from Yale and had also just published a book. This inspired Michael to write his own book and send it to Random House. He waited for six months for a response. Back in those days, Michael remembers, you couldn’t send simultaneous submissions, like you can today; you had to wait for one publisher to either accept or decline. Michael figured it was a done deal. It wasn’t. Michael, with his typical dry sense of humor, quipped, I got the shortest rejection letter in history. It wasn’t even two sentences. But the message was loud and clear: ‘You suck as a writer.’ This made Michael even more determined to become a success. The university and a Southern Baptist minister wanted to shut Michael up. The book (which Michael believes sold at least three copies, including one to his parents and someone who bought it by accident) talked too much about sex and a dating service. Michael went right to the top, attempting to convince President Lyndon Baines Johnson to become involved in his current passion, Project Empathy, a feel-good service to help Americans achieve happiness. Without realizing it, Michael became a pioneer in the field of positive psychology.

Michael, undaunted by the continual failures of his youth, didn’t have time to worry. He had already opened three candle and novelty shops, two in Illinois and one in Toronto, and was building a real estate empire—a trailer court. He helped finance the trailer court by fibbing to his grandmother, telling her that he had quit smoking cigarettes. She rewarded him with three hundred dollars a month. Coincidentally, this was the price of a used trailer, which Michael would buy in Elkhart, Indiana, and schlep down to Southern Illinois, his school headquarters.

Four years later, Michael became a successful real estate condo converter. Then, unfortunately, he lost everything when his construction loan interest rate went from 10 to 22 percent in one week. Once again, Michael picked himself up and this time delved into commodities, an area he knew nothing about. However, he managed to write another book that became a best seller. It was called Wealth Building in the 90s. He also did daily live national radio shows discussing the markets. When he tried to buy a major business radio network (FNN), the owners neglected to mention a minor debt of millions of dollars. Luckily, even Michael recognized the red flag in time.

Michael loved flying to New York to do his radio shows. A popular guest was Sirio Maccioni, owner of Le Cirque. Michael met Sirio through his father, who was then a partner in the Mayfair Regent Hotel on Sixty-fifth and Park, housing the original Le Cirque. Michael’s father even today, thirty-seven years later, ruefully remembers regretting sending his son there for his twenty-first birthday, where Michael blew thousands of dollars on great wine.

Michael wrote advice columns for some of Chicago’s leading magazines and did a live, nationally syndicated weekly radio talk show. His guests included Jackie Mason, Congressman Dan Rostenkowski, Tim Kazurinsky, Coach Mike Ditka, Stephen J. Cannell, Anne Hampton Callaway, Liz Callaway, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Bill Zwecker, and numerous other famous guests. Previously published books include the following: Thoughts after the First, Wealth Building in the 90s: What Wall Street Won’t Tell You, and Kill Talk.

Michael spends a great deal of time supporting numerous charities. Michael says his mother still thinks he should get a real job with the railroad, where at least he would get a pension and a gold watch after fifty years. He doesn’t see this happening in the near future.

Michael is listed in Who’s Who and is well known and respected, but you’d never know it listening to him. Michael always has an attitude of gratitude.

I am so lucky. People half my age that are twice as smart as me, surround me and make me look good. I am the luckiest successful failure there is.

Introduction

Don’t Read This Book 

Many authors begin introductions to their books with a dramatic, powerful, passionate, or even humorous and often cutting-edge statement that hooks you into reading the next sentence. They want you to be spellbound by their craft. They offer some new or revolutionary concept or incredibly exciting theory that leaves you breathless, addicted, and craving more. Sometimes, if the writer is really an accomplished wordsmith, you begin turning the pages at breakneck speed, visibly excited.

Adding to this adrenalin rush oftentimes is a great story with three-dimensional characters that you immediately can’t help but fall in love with. The empathy and pathos for the protagonist grabs you, becoming hot and heavy. The dialogue flows effortlessly. The tension, suspense, and plot immediately engage. If the book is nonfiction, the author immediately convinces you that his story is the best damn story ever. You will feel better and awe-inspired, having your spirit moved. You will wonder how your life, after you’ve finished this alleged great literary work, will ever be the same.

The first book I wrote forty years ago had an absolutely fantastic, blow-you-away, elegant, brilliant introduction. Someone wrote it for me. I wrote this introduction entirely by myself. The book you are about to read took me almost five years to write. It contains absolutely nothing unique or particularly insightful. So if you are perfectly happy in all aspects of your life, don’t read this book. You will gain absolutely nothing. Furthermore, if you have never been sad, depressed, anxious, overweight, stressed, or prone to bad habits or negative thoughts, then I commend you. I wish that you would write a book about how you managed to live such a perfect life.

If your life is totally and perfectly happy, I re-emphasize, please don’t read this book. Put this down right now. You have already wasted too much time. If you actually do not take my advice and buy this book, it will be revealed to you at some point how you will receive a free gift from me valued at $300 (that’s three hundred bucks American money—no fooling!). Be forewarned, though my offer is for real, you may not find it valuable for you. It is similar to having a brand-new car with four new tires. If someone offered you four additional new tires for free, you would likely say, No thanks. That is, unless you think that maybe—not right now but at some point in the not too distant future—you might need those tires.

To emphasize great new change, I felt the need to create a great new word; thus, Megamorphosis was born.

Chapter 1

Be Happier Right Now 

The CBS television program 60 Minutes featured commentator Morley Safer in a fascinating segment about happiness. Denmark, according to Safer, is the happiest country in the world.

Danes live in happiness-ville because they have low expectations. When something good happens, they are happy, since they are not expecting it. This was one of the reasons given for the country’s number-one rating in happiness. They do not have a lot to worry about. They are content. They get paid to go to college and receive free health and elder care. Danish people are not workaholics. They work thirty-seven hours a week and receive six weeks’ vacation a year.

They drink, smoke, and live longer, happier lives than Americans. They do not believe in the American Dream. They do not believe that more is better; instead, as I will continually stress in Megamorphosis, they realize that less is more. They have realistic expectations. They believe in achieving happiness that family and friends are more important than money.

Ninety-four percent of college students in America, according to Safer, are depressed. Initially, I will speak about my college days. Then I will discuss everything from 9/11 to the state of the world today and how, as we begin 2009 in spite of the terrible economy, we have more positive tools available right now to make us happier than you ever dreamed possible. Whether we are eighteen or eighty, we could all use a little more happiness in our life. Hopefully, I can help you in that journey. If not, then return this book and get your money back. Maybe you will buy my next book.

Over the last five years, I read hundreds of books to help me write Megamorphosis. I attended lectures, watched over a thousand hours of Book TV on C-Span, and read hundreds of articles, running the gamut of nihilists, theologians, scientists, self-help gurus, and everything in- between. The one main theme that remained constant, whether the book was published three days ago or three hundred years ago, was the notion that man has in some form or fashion always been searching for the meaning of life and also how to be happy.

Why we do the things we do is the subject of never-ending debate. Socrates said, The unexamined life is not worth living. Sigmund Freud’s greatest discovery was that we have an unconscious mind that functions below our level of understanding. Carl Jung, Freud’s most famous student, developed the idea of the collective unconscious, which implies we are all connected in some way. Yet we truly do not understand most things. This includes being happy, even if at times happiness seems beyond our reach. That does not mean we are not supposed to be happy—I believe that we are! Dr. Gordon Livingston, in his book Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart, offers a great definition of happiness: The three components of happiness are something to do, someone to love, and something to look forward to.

Ideally, this book should be used as a collective tool kit for your body