By Lisa Kogan
Attention, adventurers and self-improvers: Sometimes your best move is simply to stay put.
There are people who search and delve and pioneer, and we are all the richer for it. But there's something to be said for the occasional road not taken. Sometimes the quest to restore creativity and courage begins with a single, mascara-free Saturday filled with fettuccine and flannel and more than a few episodes of "Downtown Abbey" (and, of course, by "Downtown Abbey," I mean reruns of "CSI: Miami"). Here, a little encouragement for anybody who's looking to sit this one out.
1. Raise your hand if you're planning to attend your high school reunion. Allow me to spare you four solid months of carbohydrate deprivation and explain how that story ends: The cute boys are now balding men, but for reasons we will never fully comprehend, they're still capable of persuading us to let them copy our Madame Bovary notes. And the mean girls are as cliquey as ever, only thanks to Botox, they've lost their ability to form a sneer. Show up if you must, have fun if you do, but if tenth grade was just one long daisy chain of ugly for you, like it was for me -- it's okay to take a pass.
2. And speaking of Botox, we're all hoping that Mother Nature or Father Time or whoever's running the show will cut us the same deal that Christie Brinkley got. But I say err on the side of the saggy, because the road to youth is paved with women pulled tighter than the Lycra in JWoww's tube tops.
3. Show me somebody who's filled with regret over not having backpacked through Kathmandu and I'll show you somebody who's never spent a summer eating yak. Yes, spiritual enlightenment and sandals are good. But so are air-conditioning and indoor plumbing. You can experience another culture in Nepal and commune with nature to boot, but you can find spiritual enlightenment wherever you are, whenever you're ready.
4. Ever dream of sailing the seven seas? Martha Beck provides you with the tools necessary to chart your course -- 7 Steps to Creating the Life You Really Want. But who are you going to listen to, a life coach with three degrees from Harvard or me? You want to talk about sailing? I've got two words: Somali pirates.
5. Whenever I seek happiness by attempting to conquer my fear of the unknown, I head to the kitchen and try to figure out what the furry, teal-colored thing on the second shelf of my refrigerator is. It's been there since February, and the nanny swears she once heard it squeal. But perhaps you're one of those high-achieving individuals who burns with joie de vivre and your Everest actually involves scaling Kilimanjaro. You go, girl! Just know that it's perfectly normal to lose a little of that joie as you cling to the back of your deeply resentful guide while googling "altitude sickness" before the hallucinations take over and you suddenly believe you're in a Liam Neeson movie.
6. Newt Gingrich thinks we should colonize the moon, to which I say bless his heart and pack his bag. The thing is, I don't need to go to the moon; frankly, I'm not even crazy about going upstairs. I know that to imagine a tomorrow more advanced than today is essential. But in the words of my darling aunt Miriam, "I'm just going to hang back until they open a Costco up there."
7. Still dreaming of sailing the seven seas? Three words: Italian cruise ship.
8. Lately I've begun to realize that the only sure thing about the gift of life is that sooner or later, we're all going to have to return it to that big Neiman Marcus in the sky. There's no doubt about it, death is the ultimate odyssey. To make it a happy one, I hope they send me off in horizontal stripes -- because God knows, I could never really get away with them in life.
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