Ugada Be Kid'n Me: Lightening Up About Life

By Kenneth J. Mann

Like the contents of many books, this one has been inside its author (me), aching to get out since I was a teenager in the 1960s. Not the specific content so much as an intent to share the world as I see it - sardonically, humorously, ridiculously, admiringly, comically, bittersweetly, tongue-in-cheekly (yea, I know it's not a word), uproariousl

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lightening Up About Life
• Release date: Mar 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9781638488477

Book preview

Copyright 2021 ®Kenneth J. Mann

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

For permission requests or additional information, write the author at [e-mail].

ISBN: 978-1-63821-679-7 (PRINT)

ISBN: 978-1-63848-847-7 (EBOOK)

Cover design by MarkGelotte.com

Published by Kenneth J. Mann

Printed in the United States of America

Digital book(s) (epub and mobi) produced by Booknook.biz.

In Praise of Ugada Be Kid’n Me

"I’ve known Ken for 20+ years, but not until I recently experienced him emceeing a talent show did I get the gift of his genuine and loving humor! When Ken told me about his new book, being the left-brained, think-too-much engineer that I am, I jumped at the chance to dive in and reclaim that goof ball hidden within. I found my favorite passages, those keepers, to which I’ll refer back to when I get stuck again in life’s seriousness. My favorite writings are Dump Trucks and Frisbees, Inhaling On The Path, I Am Money, Financial Deficit Disorder, and Silly Adult Activities for Lightening Up in Appendix B :)

Todd Silva, Singer, Songwriter, Musician, A/V Editing/Production. See reverberation.com/toddsilva.

This book is just like sitting and talking to Ken. I've known him and worked with him for over two decades. He is his book. The construction of the book is great -it's a group of short articles and stories, strung together with pictures, cartoons and poetry. Well, something like poetry. It's almost like Ken read his own piece about Business Communication Pet Peeves. If business leaders would read - and re-read for emphasis Ken's pieces on Business Communication Pet Peeves and I Love Change and Other Lies their companies would be better for implementing the lessons.

Bob Warren - Executive Consultant, Political Scientist, Photographer

Ken Mann is a master with words. Throughout his book I could see him smiling and having a good time. I can and do count on him, in life, to bring what he proposes in his book, Lightening Up About Life, because without a less serious element, life can become joyless. Ken’s perspective on the state of human beings can be caustic and not funny (to me) often, but when I look through his sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek lens I see the possibilities that he is proclaiming to be true for all of us. As Ken reminds me to Lighten Up I invite you to give this book a shot; it matters.

Marilyn J. Macha, CFP(r), Corporate Consultant, Success Coach

"From politics to health to relationships and all else, this book is a delightful, imaginative, mind-expanding and creative collection of fun, frivolous and fantastic stories, musings, poems and other tomfoolery relating to lightening up! I would expect nothing else personally knowing Ken Mann’s personality!

Christina Webb, AKA Marisa Bellami, author of You Deserve It. See withlovechristina.com.

Contents

About Lightening Up

Lightening Up About Ourselves

Not Zoe

Beefcake

Aching for Authenticity

Life is a Workshop

Finding Our Unnecessary Self

Regret

Slippin’ Into Craziness

Lightening Up About Relationships

Just Because You Know My Buttons

What Friends Are For

The Rug

Yesterday’s Limerick

Too Pay

People Who Know How It Ought To Be

Even You’re Not Wrong All the Time

You Can Pick Your Friends

Just Like You

Finally, A Good Use of Resentments

Naming the Baby

The Long Lost Book of Dick

This One

Lightening Up About Work

The Untold Story of Bes

Work Sanity Assessment

It’s a Wonder

New HR Safety Device

Dump Trucks and Frisbees

Incredulous

Inhaling on the Path

84,127 Leadership Books

Oh, HR

Business Communication Pet Peeves

The 12th Day of Apple

Lightening Up About Money

The Arc of Stuff

I Am Money

In Me They Trust?

Penny For Your Thoughts

Financial Deficit Disorder

Selsdon

Lightening Up About Health

On Every Corner

Our Love Sustains Us In Aging

The Moral Fiber Diet

Planet Huge

The Bat Was Overkill

The Great Grocery Store Conspiracy

Eat Anything

Lightening Up About Politics

This Just In

Political Rally

Capital Punishment

In the Land of Lobbyists

Pithy

You Really Oughta

Twisted Political Aphorisms

Polly Ticks

Lightening Up About Religion

The Rush Hour Traffic to Enlightenment

Church of the Holy Starbucks

The Funny Side of God

Most Things Are Almost Possible

Who Am I

Exceptions

Guru in Training

Is It Indigestion or My Still Small Voice?

Immediate Enlightenment

Hi, I’m a Spiritual Growth Addict

Products and Services for the Soul

Lightening Up About Growth & Change

I Love Change and Other Lies

We Get Deranged

The Backslider Paradox

Will Change For Food

There’s No Crying in Growth Camp

Joy

Getting Hammered and Nailed

Step Nineteen

The Case for Lifelong Ignorance

Sprawl Mart

Your Growth Knowledge-to-Action Quotient

Appendix A: A Lighten Up Glossary

Appendix B: References for Lightening Up

Appendix C: ugadabekidnme.com

About the Author

Acknowledgements

I acknowledge my mother for my writing ability and my father for my sense of humor. I am grateful for my high school English teacher, Jesuit Father Paine, who encouraged us to explore the great authors and to continuously challenge our own thinking, advice I am still taking almost 60 years later. I am also grateful for an important collection of life teachers, coaches, and friends along the way, including Ann McMaster, Brad Brown, Myra Jolivet, Bruce Anderson, Deepak Chopra, Tom Prior, Marilyn Macha, John Hardesty, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Edwin Williams, Dian Williams, Ron Asbury, Wayne Dyer, Barbara McKinley, Pete Marabella, Penny Hasekoester, Ashley Fields, and Larry Evans.

I especially want to thank my children, Angela, Jennifer, and Daniel, and my grandchildren, Stephanie, Travis, and Emeline, for helping me understand the worlds they inhabit, just a little. Finally, my wife, Rodgie, deserves a great deal of credit, for being my muse, for helping me sort the wheat from the chaff, and for becoming the incredible love of my life. I dedicate this book to you, Rodgie.

About Lightening Up

ProFUNdity

My religion is simple; my religion is humor.

- Dolli Yama

My Source. Like the contents of many books, the one you hold in your hands has been inside its author, aching to get out since I was a teenager in the 1960s. Not the specific content so much as an intent to share the world as I see it - sardonically, humorously, ridiculously, admiringly, comically, bittersweetly, tongue-in-cheekly (yea, I know it’s not a word), uproariously, wryly, amusingly, lightheartedly, absurdly, screamingly, pricelessly, farcically, and waggishly. Put that all together and you will have the lens I look through, or you can just read on. (Expect to find other made-up words throughout.)

In my own seven-decade journey, lightening up has come to have two very different, selfish but equally important meanings:

As a Reminder to Myself:Hey, lighten up man! When I’m alone and I think things seem bad, I’ve trained myself so whenever I hear myself thinking that it is an immediate signal to my brain to lighten up. It may seem like a mind trick, and it is. It just works when I do it with conviction. Do I always follow that guidance, with conviction? To be honest, no, to my own peril. However, I’ve also put in place a rule. If I have not lightened up by the time I go to bed, I thank the universe that I will have lightened up by the time I wake up in the morning. And that’s what usually happens.

As a Request of Others:Please help me lighten up. Send something funny my way. C’mon, take a shot at helping me lighten up. Over the years, I’ve heard all kinds of responses to this plea, including, Are you alright? to a quick joke, to a hug, to Awwwwww, to my favorite, Are you serious? My best friends know what to do, which amounts to metaphorically whacking the back of my head and saying something like, snap out of it.

Scholarly papers have been written about why there is no such thing as altruism, basically giving without expectation of receiving anything in return. Take meaning number 1. When I remind myself to lighten up, and I do, I am once again capable of showing up in a way that helps others lighten up. And I reap the benefit of their lightening up.

For meaning number 2, by asking others to lighten me up, and they do so, they get to experience their own lightness again and I in turn get help lightening up. It’s a perfect circle of reciprocity. No altruism involved.

So, I hope you can find reasons to lighten up in these pages. If you do, thanks in advance for keeping the circle going with your friends, family, and just people you run into (not literally).

How the Humor is Divided. This book contains my original writing designed to help you lighten up as you read it, in any order, on any page. The book is divided into eight parts, which are lightening up about Ourselves, Relationships, Work, Money, Health, Religion, Politics, and Growth and Change. You’ll find at least one of each of the following types of writing in each part of the book:

ProFUNdity - Almost real quotes by almost real people.

Mindful Musing - An original rant or essay on the topic.

Divine Doggerel - Poetry aiming to be heavenly, often not.

Petite Parable - An original on-topic short-short story.

Tacit Toon - A crude original and tacitly related cartoon.

Extra Exposure - Photos of author in unusual situations.

You’ll also find three appendices: A Lighten Up Glossary, References for Lightening Up, and ugadabekidnme.com. Go ahead, take a peak. I’ll wait.

Hope in Hilarityville. The great and divinely humorous Jamaican guru, Ugada Bekidnme, once said, You are special. Everyone else is special too. Therefore, no one is special. It’s with these comforting words that I encourage you to look for the humor in your lives before, if not right after, you look for the meaning. In fact, looking for the humor might help you find the meaning, and you can start by reading this book.

You’ve probably heard that laughter is the best narcotic. Of course, like any narcotic, it’s addictive. It makes you look like a fool when guffawing. It forces you to find humor even for things that are marginally funny. It can lead you to laughing fits, and then leave you wondering what the hell you were laughing at. We’ve all been there.

Open the book anywhere, and in five minutes of perusing, see if you aren’t at least smiling. If not, try to get your money back. If they won’t give it to you, consider having your heart examined. That’s right, your heart. I mean, any old fool can think about something and force a chuckle. But laughing at good humor requires your heart be involved in some way, even if subservient to the taskmaster mind. Here’s a little test. Read this limerick. See if you find it at least a little funny:

There once was a searcher named Klem

Who was reading this limerick, a gem

Yes, he gave it a try

and he didn’t know why

and not up came a laugh but some phlegm

If that worked, at all, then there’s hope in Hilarityville.

ONE

Lightening Up About Ourselves

ProFUNdity

To know thyself leads to our own insanity. Not Knowing thyself leads to others’ insanity.

- Zigmond Droid

Petite Parable

Not Zoe

That afternoon, Zoe wondered again who she was. So did her new close friends. She. seemed to be different with each of them, Jane, Josh, and Adele, because when they would privately compare notes about her, it seemed like each friend was describing a different person. This became even more apparent when they were all together, because depending on who she was talking to, she acted differently, even in the same room.

Zoe, who was 27 now, spent the evening with her boyfriend, Marcus. He was pretty bossy, always telling her what to do, and even though this bothered her, she did what he asked every time. This included everything from getting him whatever he asked for to sex positions and places.

As she took the long drive back to her apartment the next morning, she started a Billy Joel album from the iPod in her car and thought it might be time to get back on her medication. She hadn’t been on it since just before she met her new friends and boyfriend 4 months ago, so they didn’t know about her condition.

She’d been treated at the Betty Boop clinic for six months about a year before. During her stay there, a team of dedicated psychological researchers discovered she had a very rare