Messy Lives - Sorting Things Out

There are an infinite ways to squander a moment or an hour or even a year of our lives, which are finite.

At 63, I have indulged in at least a large number of the possible ways to do just that. I have lusted after having things that in the end I really did not need and it cost me dearly in wasted time to acquire them. I have chosen to take the wrong road, only to find out that wasn't where I wanted to go at all. I have struggled to fit into groups which had no interest in including me. Worse yet, I just got lost in my life for long periods and just allowed myself to drift wherever the stream chose to take me. And then there were the years I allowed myself to sink into depression, during which I could move neither forward or backwards. The best I could do was go get through the day in one piece, from one day to the next. But such as it was, it was my life and I take full responsibility for the times when I failed and the times when I sailed successfully.

As a nation, we have collectively gone through one of the most traumatic years, economically.

But most of us have survived the crunch and are gearing up to move on once again with our lives. Talk about living in limbo for a year, 2009 was real pip. We all stood back waiting for what shock to our lives would come next. We all lost a lot of time to anxiety and fear and uncertainty as to what was to come next.

Upon reflection, we might all emerge from the disaster that was 2009 with an amazing opportunity. I, for one, have rethought my life. So many of the things I wanted to have or to be just do not seem all that important anymore. The big house, the fancy car, the big screen television, belonging to the posh country club, most certainly a lot of money in the bank... all those things are nice to have. But ultimately, they are just things, just things that impart a transitory bit of status to us.

My business was badly impacted by the downturn, and I am rebuilding it in earnest now. There are times when money is very short or for a day or two, my bank account is completely tapped. But I found out something very important. I need food on the table and gas in the car. I need a roof over my head and money enough to pay the bills. I need clothes on my back and I need to be able to see a doctor if there is I experience a health issue. These things I absolutely need and if I do have them, then I will make it and my life will go on, not hugely impacted by the shortfall.

I will tell you what really matters. When I come home, there will be people who care about me and who love me, in spite of all my failings. I enjoy a rich family life. I can tap into a network of friends who will be there for me and for whom I will be there. I haven't destroyed my reputation or my health. And even if I do not have a great deal of money, I enjoy the sense that I am making a difference in the world... that in that regard, I am one of the richest men in the world.

In the final analysis, it really doesn't matter what others have that I do not have. I doesn't matter that others enjoy more fame or fortune than I do. Nor does it matter that the professional or academic accomplishments of some men and women outshine mine. Such things can be easily tarnished or taken from you anyway. There are no guarantees in our lives that anything lasts forever.

I have no idea if there are going to be another tomorrow for me. No matter if there is or there isn't, I am just thankful that I have made it this far. It is certainly enough that I am so blessed as to possess the things that really matter.

Warm Bread and Serenity

Tonight, I attended a very pleasurable performance of A Chorus Line. I usually catch most of the Broadway musicals that come to town, but for many months now, life has happened. And while it was happening, there were more important things on my mind than going to the theater. Driving home from the Hobby Center, I felt really good and happy that I could just live in the moment.

Actually, the last four or five days have been marvelous. For some unknown reason, everything has just felt right. The sun and the stars have been exactly where they are supposed to be. I have had the feeling that my life is finally heading in the right direction.. or at least not going in the wrong direction. For the moment, when I try to accomplish something important, it is happening. I am savoring the moment. There is something wonderfully special about this fleeting island in time. What I want most is that no one will jump in and say anything or do anything to spoil this magic. I hope against hope that life will not rudely insert itself and say, "Well! Enough of this nonsense. Time to get back to reality."

My euphoria isn't all that different from being in the kitchen where some bread in baking in the oven. The wonderful aroma of baking bread fills the kitchen. As the timer moves closer to telling us to take the bread out of the oven, our sense of anticipation is only fueled by the delicious aroma filling the room. And then, we remove the bread from the oven and let it cool down a bit. But we cannot resist pinching off just a small piece and eating it while it is still warm. There is absolutely nothing so marvelous as eating bread while it is still warm. When the bread finally cools down, I will still find it delicious, but it will never be so memorably wonderful to eat as when it was still warm just out of the oven.

It is late. Tomorrow is Monday and the work week will begin once again. And all too soon, the usual noise of the world will ruin my lovely moment. Of course, I knew that this lovely interlude would end much too soon and the harsh light of day would return me to being the pragmatic realist into which I have evolved. The realist within me tells me just to enjoy the moment while I can and when it is over, to simply move on to what comes next.

I feel just a small pang of regret. You have no idea how pleasant it was not to feel angry at anyone or to feel pain or disappointment in myself or in others for even a few days. However, one should accept a few days of peace and serenity thankfully, with humility. It is a gift we are permitted to enjoy only from time to time. We should thank our lucky stars for these moments of respite from the difficulties of our lives. During our lives, such moments will be few and far between.

Living on the Top of a Hill

There is a free spirit in all of us that screams out to express itself in our lives. That yells out to us to do something that everyone else will tell us is crazy or insane or makes no sense to them. And sometimes, we actually do that thing, whatever happens to be "our thing," because it is something we simply have to do, if our lives are make any sense to us.

A very good friend of mine lived all his life in cities. He was city boy if anyone was. Norman and his family had lived in Houston, Miami Beach, Oklahoma City and Denver. He had been an educator for most of his working years. Sherry, his wife, had worked as an office administrator. As they neared retirement age, they told me that that they had bought a piece of land near San Luis, Colorado, which is in the middle of nowhere somewhere near the New Mexico border. Their property wasn't in town, but fifteen or twenty miles away from San Luis and about the same distance from the next nearest town in the opposite direction.

When the time came they moved onto their land and lived in a mobile home, while they built their house. This was a couple of years ago. The house has been framed in and has heat, but they still need to use the bathroom in the mobile home. And they love it where they are. The live at the top of a desert plateau that they share with a couple of deer and horses that come by from time to time.

Norman and Sherry seem to be very happy with their isolation and their having put some distance between themselves and civilization. We ought to applaud them. They are actually doing what they want to be doing, living well outside of what was their comfort zone during the working years of their lives.

I have to tell you, what they have chosen to do makes absolutely no sense to me. I am as urban a person as you are going to find. I am so used to living in a noisy, crowded city with impossible vehicle traffic that I would feel completely out of place in a small town, much less on an isolated, lonely hilltop. I need that fix of hearing people about me and being able to go down the street to the grocery store or the drug store if I need something. A lot of people are like me and need the fix that an urban environment provides. To tell you the truth, I feel alive in a busy, noisy, impossible to live in city. I feel that way here in Houston and I felt the same way when I visited my daughter in London. But that is just me.

Truthfully, how many of us would be willing to give up so many of the creature comforts of our lives? How many of us would walk away from the certainties of our lives and trade them for something unknown and risky? How many of us could deal with the almost absolute quietness and solitude of where Norman and Sherry live? And how many of us would not be completely freaked out by knowing we were at least fifteen or twenty miles from the closest human being?

What they have had the guts to do has forced me to think about things outside the box that I would like to do in my wildest dreams. Taking a couple of years to just travel the world with my wife, letting the wind take us where it does and not planning where we will be two weeks from today... that would be nice. I haven't asked my wife what she would like to do, but I already know she wouldn't even give the question much serious thought. She is, you see, a very practical person. But it has occurred to me, that all things being equal, it would be exhilerating to just set aside all the responsibilities we take on as we get older and just do our thing, without thinking about it too much or asking ourselves if this is the right thing to do. Just thinking about that possibility makes me want to get a little crazy and just sail off into the sunset to see the world, as I have always wanted to do.

In essence, that is what my friends, Norman and Sherry, did. Hats off to them. And, you know, it just might not be so bad to live on the top of a hill, far away from the maddening crowd.

Living in the Moment - A Simple Truth

It has taken me a very long time to figure this out. We have to live fully in the moment... this very moment. The moment I am writing this entry or the moment you may be doing something entirely different. The rest of our lives will depend on what we do right now or what we choose to put off right now.

What I am saying makes perfect sense. At this very moment, each of us has a goal, something we are trying to do. That goal may be very significant or not very important in the larger realm of things. Whichever is the case, that is our goal. To successfully complete the task, we need to be focused on the immediate task. We need to be aware of whatever it is we are doing, for in some cases our very lives may hang in the balance if we don't. Until we have finished the job at hand, all else has to be on the back burner. Then, we move on to the moment at which we turn to the next item on our list of things to do.

Of course, our lives are never that cut and dried. In reality, our lives seldom travel in a straight line. If necessary, when we have to make adjustments to our game plan because our realities or circumstances change, we do so. However, even when we have to change course because the wind has changed course, that only proves my point. The moment that the wind changed direction, we have to make a decision. We have to adjust our sails or risk having our lives momentarily capsized. By living in the moment, we are constantly aware of what is happening to us and around us. That awareness enables us to get through the moment in one piece and to move on to whatever happens next. In my mind, that is one definition of success.

There is always an element of uncertainty in whatever we set out to do. We are never guaranteed that our plans will turn out exactly as we have laid them out. That there will be glitches is the rule rather than the exception. The only thing that matters is that we are sufficiently alert and aware, so that we are not blind-sided.

I am not saying we don't need mid-term or long-term goals. We do. But we live our lives one day at a time, one minute at a time... one moment at a time. If we stumble at any point along the way, the best laid of plans can be at risk. It is that focus, awareness, commitment and flexibility I spoke of that will enable us to navigate the moment just ahead. Maybe if we are very fortunate and all other things are equal, we may even come to realize some of the most important goals in life.

What Have We Done?

It is a cultural crime that the modern world has committed. In our hands we hold wonderful tools for communication... television, radio, music magazines and newspapers. And of course, the computer and the internet. And we have squandered all of these mediums of communication. If the medium is the message, a statement about who we are and what we are, then the foolish and pointless use we have made of all of these inventions speaks badly about us.

Look anywhere and there is an endless supply of pointless and gratuitous sex being peddled. The music that comes at us from every direction has been dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. Those who produce television shows have taken the path of least resistance and doled out to us one reality show after another. They produce too many television series without merit or value and sitcoms that just are not clever or even worth watching. Even the ads aren't very interesting anymore. Newspapers no longer serve to inform us very well and are starting to disappear. Magazines are shadows of what they used to be. Magazines now have a lot more pictures and a lot less text and are mostly about the newest things one can buy out there in the marketplace. Even the venue of Broadway has been dumbed down.

The public wants to be entertained and the media folks give them what they want, in increasing measure with each passing day. Even the news broadcast has to be entertaining enough to garner the highest ratings possible and the news broadcasters have to be easy on the eye. The latter part is more important than their ability to bring us the most important news of the day.

The world changes so quickly these days. Somehow, in all this change and transition, something very significant and important has been lost. The ability to express ourselves coherently and intelligently. The capacity to think and analyze what is happening to us and our world. The capacity to feel and to be compassionate and to care about others in a meaningful way. Such things don't seem to mean very much anymore. So long as the media moguls keep us laughing or singing along with the latest stuff that passes for music today, most people are happy and pacified.

So much has been lost. This is not progress.

The Plan

I have been searching for myself lately. Amidst the chaos of our economy and of my own life, for a time I have found myself lost, or more precisely, at a loss, in my own life. These are confusing times. These are difficult times to navigate. These are difficult times in which to maintain one's focus. And these are certainly uncertain times during which it is occasionally very difficult to think clearly, especially when more and more, surviving even the day becomes the most pressing problem.

What is at risk in the process is our humanity, our dreams and our aspirations. Somewhere among paying the bills, keeping a roof over our heads, keeping gasoline in the car and making sure there is food on the table, doing those things which we most long to do, ceases to be a priority. We we are forced to do whatever it will take to survive the moment. I am no different than anyone else these days. Day to day, I am just trying to survive until the economy recovers. There is that awful sense that really significant parts of my life are simply shutting down. Life has become a bit darker and depressing.

Still, always on the tip of my tongue are the words, "And yet...." And yet, what? We pay a price when we fully abandon dreams. We pay a price when we just set aside our personal aspirations, in the face of a personal crisis. I fully believe that no matter how seriously chaotic or disruptive are the times in which we live, we still must never fully abandon or forget the shining hopes that inspired us to become more than we are today. It is that element of hope that enables us to keep going, no matter how bad things may get. It is that hope that allows us to rise above almost any situation and to somehow give hope to others or to continue to make a difference in the world.

I am, like everyone else, a unique person. I possess certain unique talents and I have the potential to touch the lives of other people in my own particular way. There is no guarantee that my partular personal attributes or my skill sets will enable me to make a comfortable living or make survival in these challenging times any easier. But, for me, individual survival is about much more than monetary considerations. No matter what, I need to sustain a healthy level of self-esteem, to retain the capacity to love others and be loved and to maintain a healthy sense of humor. I do not care how stressed out I become, I never want to lose the capacity to be compassionate and caring. I never want to lose that hope that someday I will realize at least some of the dreams I have for my life. Even if my life is difficult and limited today, I never want to lose that hope that in time, it will get better.

When life is bumpy, it is very easy to lose these qualities, amidst the struggle to simply survive. So at the end of a tough day, I try to remind myself to remember those qualities and hopes that make life bearable and worth living. At the top of my to do list, are reminders to tell my wife and my kids I love them and to go out of my way to help someone else. I am not being noble or particularly wonderful. In fact, I am doing something for myself. I am preserving my own humanity and bringing light and joy and happiness into my life. By doing that, I can partly dispel the darkness and cynicism that difficult times bring with them.

Well, I have made it to the end of yet one more day. I am still in one piece and I am not yet defeated. But tomorrow is another day. Tomorrow, at the end of the day, I may well have to remind myself yet one more time about never giving up and about being kind and compassionate to other people and all the other items I listed above. It may not be rocket science, but it works for me.

Sightseeing [Part 1]

By any definition, Charlie Lester was a successful fellow. After too many years as a successful accountant at a big firm, he had quit his job and struck out on his own, twelve months ago. He wanted a better life for himself and his family. A year later, things were going well for him and it looked like he has going to get just that.

On this particular afternoon, he couldn't concentrate on the computer screen in front of him. He had tried six times to locate the cause of an error in the books, with little success. He experienced mental gridlock and although it was only 5 pm, he decided to try again in the morning. He had put in long hours for a year and he felt worn out. After he cleared his desk and packed his briefcase, he got up to go home to his family.

Sarah Winslow, his administrative assistant, seemed surprised to see him leaving before six pm. She always put in as many hours as it took to get the work out, without complaint. He appreciated that and told her to wrap things up and go home early today. What still needed to be done would be there in the morning waiting for the two of them.

Lately, Charlie had the sense that something was missing in his life. He couldn't exactly pinpoint what that something was. However, he knew that he had lost that initial excitement he had experienced when he had set up his own company. Now, the wonderful challenge had become just work, pretty much the same from day to day.

The main reason he had left the firm was that he wanted to spend more time with his family. After leaving, he had discovered that he was spending more time working for himself than when he was working for someone else.

As he walked to his car, he knew that things were not working out as he thought they would. Something was wrong with this picture. But what?

To be continued...