Tag Archives: Crazy English

One afternoon I was sitting at my favorite table in a restaurant, waiting for the food I had ordered to arrive. Suddenly I noticed that a man sitting at a table near the window kept glancing in my direction, as if he knew me. The man had a newspaper open in front of him, which he was pretending to read, but I could see that he was keeping an eye on me. When the waiter brought my food the man was clearly puzzled by the familiar way in which the waiter and I chatted with each other. He seemed even more puzzled as time went on and it became clear that all the waiters in the restaurant knew me. Finally he got up and went into the kitchen. When he came out, he paid his bill and left without another glance in my direction.

I called the owner of the restaurant and asked what the man had wanted. “Well,” he said, “that man was a detective. He followed you here because he thought you were the man he was looking for. “What?” I said, showing my surprise. The owner continued, “He came into the kitchen and showed me a photo of the wanted man. I must say he looked very much like you! Of course, since we know you, we told him that he had made a mistake.” “Well, it’s really lucky I came to a restaurant where I’m known,” I said. “Otherwise, I might have been in trouble.”

In setting goals for your life, short and long-term, you should continually ask yourself, “What do I most enjoy doing in each area of my life?” For instance, if you could do just one thing all day long in your work, what would it be? If you could do any job or full-time activity all the time, without pay, what would it be? What sort of work or activity gives you the greatest joy and satisfaction?

The psychologist Abraham Maslow identified what he called “peak experiences,” “those moments or times when an individual feels the happiest, most elated, and most exhilarated.” One of your aims in life is to enjoy as many peak experiences as possible. You achieve this by thinking back and identifying those moments of  peak experience in your past and then by imagining how you could repeat them in your present and future. What have been your happiest moments in life up to now? How  could you have more of those moments in the future? What do you really love to do?