A modern-day Lynyrd Skynyrd song's lyrics go:

"My hair's getting white, my neck's always been red, and my collar's still blue."

Why didn't he just say that his skin's white? Then we'd really have a song on our hands.

Pro Bono

Rock stars make loads of money. We all know this.

We also know the world needs people who make loads of money to do pro bono work for those less fortunate.

So why is it so many have such trouble being pro Bono?

I refer, of course, to U2's Bono. He's just a rock star with loads of money doing pro bono work for the less fortunate. What gives?

Perhaps his detractors think his pro bono work is nothing more, at its core, than pro Bono.

Whatever.

People with loads of money should follow Bono's lead and do the pro bono work this planet needs. Perhaps they could start by contributing meaningful portions of their incomes.

IRS figures indicate that those earning between $100,000 and $200,000 per year contribute, on average, just 3 percent of their incomes to charities. The same holds true for those making $200,000 to $500,000. And those making between $500,000 and $1,000,000 still only contribute, on average, 3 percent of their incomes to charitable causes.

We have to climb all the way to the uber-rich's perch to see those faint glimmers of hope. Many of these people, unlike their merely-kind-of-rich peers, get the idea.

And so what if Gates is pro Gates? Who cares whether Buffet is pro Buffet? It's no secret that Brangelina is pro Brangelina. Can't Bono, a rock star with loads of money, be pro Bono and do pro bono work just like the other famous people out there do with their loads of money?

Bring on the donations and publicity for the less fortunate.

Take time to enjoy who you are

We've all heard it, and often. And for these reasons, the advice goes in one ear and out the other without the attendant thought that provokes reflection. Indeed, the triteness of yet another message encouraging us to think positively sets in motion our minds' tendencies to be dismissive, and we never recognize the reflex that races to place a sage aphorism under the category of "feel-good tripe from some second-rate Stuart Smalley wannabe."

But add the word "already" to the end, and see what happens.