If you aren't happy with your life and you want to be, here's the key.

Remove yourself from your own problems, roll up your sleeves and immerse yourself in other people's problems.

We live in a world where we are bombarded by the media daily with images of products and things that we're told will make us feel happy, younger, more fulfilled. Hell, I used to make my living helping sell you this lie. I worked for years in an industry that separated you from your hard-earned money with lies about the key to happiness.

We had to lie because there is not a thing on this planet that you can buy that will give you long term happiness. Knowing this, we sat in rooms figuring out how to make you feel inadequate about yourself so we could sell you something that would "remedy" the thing in you that we created.

So I'm coming clean. I'm seeking some atonement. I ask for your forgiveness. I offer you, finally, the truth.

There is one key to long term happiness and it's totally free. Help others. Hold doors for people. Say nice things. Teach someone something you know that they don't. Spend your money on someone other than you. When you see somebody fall down, do not sit there with your thumb up your ass, roll up your sleeves and help pick them up. Give.

I donated the use my pedal boats this weekend to the families who lost everything in the July 4th Hunter's Ridge Apartments complex fire. These families, these children, lost everything in an immediate and terrifying way. Everything. It was the smartest decision I made all week.

Some days I don't feel like I have a lot, but I have. Some days I'm afaid my pedal boat business won't make it but it's puttering along. These people lost it all. So I gave them my time and energy, but you know what I got that Hollywood and Madison Avenue can't sell you? I got to turn frowns into smiles and that simple act washed away all my worries and made my own problems vanish.

I witnessed the sad and fear filled eyes of to many kids to young to know that there will be a new teddy bear or even family pet for them to love and provide them comfort again. I got to see happiness in those eyes and I helped put it there. A free ride on a pedal boat isn't much, but that's the point. I gave what I could, it mattered, it made hurting people feel better for a little while and it made me feel great. I still feel great with the memories.

You can't sell that. You can't buy that. You can only earn it.

If you are feeling down and you want to feel better, don't break out your wallet or purse and race off to the shopping mall for the next best thing that's promised to cure all your ills. You won't find it there. Roll up your sleeves and help someone. Help them by simply saying something kind to them or giving them something you have that they don't. Big or small, the more you give the more you shall recieve.

This is the truth, it's free and it's the key to your own happiness.

In this, I can promise you that you will find a joy that lasts.

If you look at this

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080713/NEWS07/807130385

you will see a couple of those Hunter's Ridge Apartment people, a couple of those kids, who lost everything except the cloths on their backs.

When you look at these people, what do you see? I see people I now know. I see people that I made laugh. I see people who thanked me for helping to pick them up, their kids up.

So that's what I did with my weekend and I feel great. I feel like a man. I feel a hundred feet tall. I feel awesome.

What did you do with your weekend and how do you feel?

Now it's time for you to think.