Every once in awhile I'll browse through eBay's vintage toys and dolls pages and find a long-lost doll from my childhood. This one, Simona, by Italian dollmaker Furga, is now offered for sales on eBay at a starting bid of $169. I think I found her on one of the many trips my family took to the Sears on Western Ave. in Chicago. I changed her name to Nancy cause she reminded me of Nancy Sinatra.

"If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right." - Jerry, to George, in "The Opposite"


George's decision to change his luck by doing the opposite of his usual M.O. in the 1994 Seinfeld episode The Opposite  is more than the basis for a comedy show. It's an actual,  proven way to turn your life around.  I first discovered this concept, from a long out-of-print  book called Own Your Own Life by Gary Emery. "When you're off track, take the opposite tack.", he wrote. i recently asked a friend of mine, a college dropout, who went from working minimum wage retail jobs to being in charge of a huge tech project worth millions  of dollars, if she had any advice on becoming successful. "Yes," she said, "Look at what everybody else is doing - and then do the opposite."