You might have a funny spot on your head. Or you might have a funny spot in your head. Different types of spots, true…but both could use an occasional tune-up.

Do you have a funny spot?  I do.  It’s on my head.  Sometimes it pops up a week after getting my hair cut.  Sometimes two, or even three weeks later.  And it seems that each time it pops up a little differently.  More than anything, my funny spot dictates when I get a hair cut.

Most of us have funny spots in our personalities, too.  Certain things might rub us the wrong way.  Or in certain situations we might become suddenly shy or clumsy after a while.

Just as my hair needs maintenance to help manage that funny spot, we all need personality maintenance, which we often call self-help.  We need to know what characteristics about ourselves look “funny” or somehow interfere with smooth relationships with others.  And we need to take regular measures to manage those elements.  Chances are, these are not things we can eliminate (although some might be), but simply to keep a check on them so that they allow us to be pleasant to others and function at our best in our community.

Consider this: you give your car regular maintenance, don’t you?  And you are at least as valuable as your car, right?  And you are much more complicated than you car, aren’t you?  And you you don’t even come with an instruction manual, do you?

So make sure to keep you as well tuned as your car.

P.S.  I once had an even funnier spot on my head…

This post first appeared in A Daily Dose of Happiness newsletter