Memories of Melissa

Last night, I attended a memorial service, in memory of Melissa, an amazing person, music teacher, choral director from upstate New York, who was only 48 years old when she passed. I didn't know Melissa personally but she is the sister and sister-in-law of two of my wonderful friends. Thanks to her devoted family, the memorial service, which they clearly defined as a "celebration of her life," gave me a glimpse into the Melissa's life. While her life may have been cut short by cancer, there was no shortage of inspiration coming from this beautiful soul. She inspired her family and inspired hundreds of students to follow their musical dreams and to "sing out loud."

From beginning to end, the whole service was very touching, especially when Lee, stood at her piano and, in honor of her sister-in-law, belted out Rent's "365 Days" in her beautiful voice. When the pastor read the passage written by Jack, Melissa's sister, I couldn't hold back the tears. He made mention that, as a result of his sister's loss, "sorrow had become a friend." But he also added that he wasn't going to let sorrow become a permanent visitor. Even during this very difficult time, they were going to let peace and love move them forward.

As I listened to stories about Melissa, I thought to myself, how amazing is she! She loved music and shared that love with countless people. Melissa wasn't an observer but a "doer." She lived and loved life with passion. She touched people's lives in a remarkable way!

When it is our time on earth has ended, what will people remember us by? What will we leave behind in terms of memories? Did we celebrate our lives to the best of our ability? Did we contribute to society and to each other in a positive way? Like Melissa, will we leave behind an indelible mark?

Whether you're young or old, it's never too late to make a difference. It's never too late to live out loud, love out loud and sing out loud!

From the Harvard Gazette! Pay attention to this...

I came across this article in the Harvard Gazette recently and wanted to share it. Based on this study, it seems that "being present" in this day and age is becoming obsolete. Of course, all the technology we have at our fingertips seems to have capitulated us into a great state of NOT BEING "in the moment" because we are too busy multi-tasking with our computers, cell phones, iPods, iPhones, iPads, Ay, ay, ay, ay...

So read below and see you can read the entire piece without going off into daydream land!
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People spend 46.9 percent of their waking hours thinking about something other than what they’re doing, and this mind-wandering typically makes them unhappy. So says a study that used an iPhone Web app to gather 250,000 data points on subjects’ thoughts, feelings, and actions as they went about their lives.

The research, by psychologists Matthew A. Killingsworth and Daniel T. Gilbert of Harvard University, is described this week in the journal Science.

“A human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind,” Killingsworth and Gilbert write. “The ability to think about what is not happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost.”

Unlike other animals, humans spend a lot of time thinking about what isn’t going on around them: contemplating events that happened in the past, might happen in the future, or may never happen at all. Indeed, mind-wandering appears to be the human brain’s default mode of operation.

To track this behavior, Killingsworth developed an iPhone app that contacted 2,250 volunteers at random intervals to ask how happy they were, what they were currently doing, and whether they were thinking about their current activity or about something else that was pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant.

Subjects could choose from 22 general activities, such as walking, eating, shopping, and watching television. On average, respondents reported that their minds were wandering 46.9 percent of time, and no less than 30 percent of the time during every activity except making love.

“Mind-wandering appears ubiquitous across all activities,” says Killingsworth, a doctoral student in psychology at Harvard. “This study shows that our mental lives are pervaded, to a remarkable degree, by the nonpresent.”

Killingsworth and Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard, found that people were happiest when making love, exercising, or engaging in conversation. They were least happy when resting, working, or using a home computer.

“Mind-wandering is an excellent predictor of people’s happiness,” Killingsworth says. “In fact, how often our minds leave the present and where they tend to go is a better predictor of our happiness than the activities in which we are engaged.”

The researchers estimated that only 4.6 percent of a person’s happiness in a given moment was attributable to the specific activity he or she was doing, whereas a person’s mind-wandering status accounted for about 10.8 percent of his or her happiness.

Time-lag analyses conducted by the researchers suggested that their subjects’ mind-wandering was generally the cause, not the consequence, of their unhappiness.

“Many philosophical and religious traditions teach that happiness is to be found by living in the moment, and practitioners are trained to resist mind wandering and to ‘be here now,’” Killingsworth and Gilbert note in Science. “These traditions suggest that a wandering mind is an unhappy mind.”

This new research, the authors say, suggests that these traditions are right.

Killingsworth and Gilbert’s 2,250 subjects in this study ranged in age from 18 to 88, representing a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds and occupations. Seventy-four percent of study participants were American.