Hey, Joel Osteen, I Like Your Teeth!

I was thinking the other day, how can I become a better me? And then I realized, hey, didn't that smiley guy from TV write a book about that?

Yes, he did. According to the press material, "In Become a Better You: 7 Keys to Improving Your Life Every Day, Joel Osteen, America's best-known pastor, will inspire and motivate you to live with more joy, hope, and peace — truly a life of victory!"

But Publishers Weekly countered, "Though this book is destined for strong sales, it offers nothing innovative."

Apparently, there's no money in innovation when it comes to spirituality.

It's all about having a nice smile.

I never got that. Who wants a preacher with perfect teeth? If you're going to talk about struggle and redemption, I want to see your scars.

Calling Osteen's brand of Christianity "spiritual escapism," Ole Anthony, the president of the Trinity Foundation, a religious-fraud watchdog group, told Good Magazine:

"The reason [Osteen is] so popular is because of the spiritual infantilism of America. Not just spiritual, the infantilism of American culture," Anthony says. "And he feeds the Paris Hilton, Britney Spears culture. It's all me. Benefit me. What can I do for me? How can I feel better? What can I do about me? How you can get the best of your life? It's all me-centered."

Oh, well. I will say this for Joel Osteen: he is a monster of a business man. And he hasn't gotten caught molesting teenage boys yet as far as I know. Which puts him ahead of most of the megachurch preachers who have become larger than life.

At least so far.

The Question of Regret, or, Towards An Algorithm of Survivability

Sometimes when I have regrets, I think, "At least I am alive. If I had done something differently, I might have ended up dead."

What if I had chosen a more lucrative career, bought a different car, eaten somewhere different for lunch? Any change, small or big, in my lifeline could have caused a chain reaction leading to my untimely death.

The path I have chosen so far has kept me alive. The outcome of any other course cannot be accurately determined because cause-and-effect is not as predictable as we'd like to believe.

There is a flipside, though.

Just because I am still alive does not mean that all my decisions were correct. Or were they? Where does survivability rank on the importance of factors when making a decision?

Surely, some amount of risk is necessary to live a full life.

If survivability were the overriding factor in decision making, Jim Morrison would have been an accountant, Neil Armstrong would have taught elementary school, and not many people would ever willingly enlist in the military (though the will to survive is a cause FOR a military to be fielded in many instances).

Progress is rarely accomplished without risk, meaning everyone must jump into the pool from time to time.

However, some aspects of life have a clear correlation with living longer: healthy eating, exercise, not smoking. Yet, people still eat junk food, chain smoke, and avoid the gym at all costs. Why? Because among other reasons, (they think) it makes them happy. And happiness is a factor in survivability.

I do not know if it is better to life a relatively safe life or a relatively daring one. But I do know there is such a thing as a totally safe life. You can reduce your risk of death in attempt to prolong your life, but two facts are certain: bad things can happen to anyone, and eventually everyone is going to die.

Perhaps there is a Google-type algorithm for life that factors risk and reward both for the individual and for society. The less risk you can encounter for the greatest reward, the higher your life decisions rank.

But then that leaves the question: what is the greatest reward?

A topic for another day.