Rhett

Emotions

My favorite movie is Casablanca. My favorite song is I’ll Be Around by the Spinners.

Why?

They’re both sentimental. Maybe even maudlin. But I come from a long line of people who use sentimental props to release a little emotion without the threat of really losing control, so that fits.

They’re also about losing in love. Losing, but recognizing it, accepting it, and choosing to stand aside as gracefully as circumstances allow.

That has great appeal to me.

But I’m afraid it’s not for the nobility, the dignity of accepting your lot, even when it hurts. I mean, I tell myself that’s how I want to behave, and maybe there’s a little of that in me, but I’m afraid the deeper truth is simply that I’m an emotional coward.

I’m not very comfortable with emotions. I find them all difficult to confront.

I find confrontation very difficult for that matter, largely because of the emotional danger inherent in it. I don’t like being called out one bit – it embarrasses me, angers me, even frightens me – and I believe most everyone else feels the same. Confrontation is emotional.

Love isn’t confrontational. At least not usually. And yet it terrifies me as much as anger, grief, jealousy. Vulnerability makes me very, very uncomfortable. Is it because I don’t trust others? Probably. But I am quite convinced that sharing my emotions will just end up with me being completely flayed, which will break me, change me into someone different than who I am, and make it impossible to reclaim the person I am now. And I really like who I am now.

I’m not a physical coward. I can be physically uncomfortable without (much) complaint. I’ve finished many marathons and an Ironman triathlon. I’ve lived on a mountainside at 13,000 feet elevation in winter without indoor plumbing. I recently had a gall bladder attack that was excruciatingly painful. But while unpleasant, I didn’t shy away from any of it.

I’m not a spiritual coward, mainly because I’m just not spiritual. I don’t feel connection to the universe or to the earth or really to people I don’t know personally. I don’t think that makes me immoral or even amoral – I believe, strongly, in helping others. I think the point of life is joy, and that the greatest joy comes from experiencing life with others, in community, caring for and being cared for.

I’m not an intellectual coward. Ideas don’t scare me at all. I relish discussion, even about topics that are highly-charged for others, and I don’t feel anxious or intimidated about discussing any subject objectively.

Make it about me, however, and I will recoil. Irrational, certainly. It is a purely emotional reaction, but that fear of being permanently injured strikes me clear to my core. And so I protect myself by keeping my emotions locked up.

Except for the safe release sentimental moments afford.

Adulting

My daughters are going through the change.

Not menopause. (At least I hope not – I don’t have grandchildren yet!)

Their change is from learning to doing, from studying and practicing to working and producing. My oldest graduated college a couple years ago, my youngest will graduate in a few months. Their transition to full-time contributors to our society is going about as well as expected. Which is to say they are confused, anxious, and highly stressed.

Like most of us who have gone through it.

I don’t know that we’re failing our young people as they move from school into working, but I do think we’ve not been able to articulate a path that illuminates what will be different and how they will be able to successfully manage it. Which is weird, because the answer(s) seem simple.

First, find work that fills a deeply-felt purpose. If the goals of your work align with your values, then you can stand doing the boring stuff you’re going to have to do as the noob, because you know it moves the ball forward on things that are super important to you. And you don’t have to make a lot of money, because A) you don’t have a lot of expenses, and B) you’re not going to make a ton more money in another entry-level position this side of Wall Street. So embrace your ideals and find work that results in something that feels important to you.

Second, tend to your health. That’s health writ large. Get daily exercise. Pray. Journal your feelings. Meditate. Do puzzles. Eat regularly. And for God sakes, get enough sleep every night. When you keep your physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual selves in balance, you can manage the ebbs and flows of your life much more capably.

Third, tend to your relationships. Your partner. Your family. Your friends. Your colleagues. Text them. Go to lunch and dinner. Have coffee or beers. Invite them over for game night. Go for a hike or a run together. Call them on their birthdays. Share what’s happening with you, and take interest in what they’re experiencing. The more vibrant your network of people is, the more enriching your life will be, and the more support you can pull from it in your times of need. And there is always times of need. When you are present for them, they will be there when you need help too.

And that’s really it.

If we helped our young people – and ourselves – concentrate on these three ubertasks, then this whole adulting thing wouldn’t be so intimidating. There’s plenty of distractions out there to dull our focus – our phones, TVs and streaming services, booze and pot and other consciousness-altering temptations – and those are among the reasons we struggle with this transtion, but I think if we could present these simple steps in a way that resonates as truth, perhaps my daughters and their peers would heed them and save themselves a lot of agony. And just maybe this transition wouldn’t feel so daunting.

“Smart”

My Uncle Jim and I will never be mistaken for each other.

I am a college graduate with a double major in Economics & Management and English Composition and a year of graduate business school under my belt. He dropped out of high school. I have lived in Canada and Chile and several of our United States, and I have traveled in South America, Europe, Asia, and New Zealand. If Uncle Jim has spent any time at all outside a 100-mile radius of Rockton, Illinois, I would be shocked. I have worked in Fortune 500 companies and start-ups, most recently launching a franchise shared-workspace business. When he worked for someone other than a neighboring farmer, Uncle Jim drove a local delivery truck.

I don’t say this either to demean this most generous man or to extoll any talents of mine. These are facts, easily provable even in this charged political environment that doesn’t seem to recognize them.

I say all this because I was having a discussion with my brother on a drive back from southern California yesterday, and we landed on the word “smart.” He said he didn’t think he was as smart as our sister (kindly, he made no comment on how he thinks she and I compare!).

I’ve thought for some time that “smart” is a uselessly imprecise term, and I feel more strongly about that with every passing year. And when a man as talented as my brother feels like he is lacking, I know why I feel that way. “Smart” is such a nebulous concept with so many variables that it cannot be commonly defined. To wit:

If you wanted someone to build a business performance model, relating processes to each other, and associating costs and revenues to products and services, then you would be far better served to hire me to do that if your only other choice was Uncle Jim. I don’t think he’d be able to even comprehend what you wanted when you started to describe it. When it comes to creating a quantified reflection of what a business does, I am much smarter than my uncle, which is to say I understand the concepts, I know how to dissect a business, I’ve mastered the technology that allows me to build a pretty sophisticated model that can accommodate many scenarios, and I can communicate my findings.

Getting a truck or a tractor to run is a completely different situation however. I don’t know how an engine works, or how that engine transfers power to move not just the vehicle but also any equipment that it uses, or what that equipment even does. But Uncle Jim sure knows. Anything you find on a farm, he knows how to get it to work, and then he knows what to do with it once it’s going. When it comes to machines or farming, Uncle Jim is way, way smarter than me.

So when it comes to being “smart,” I think any assessment has to be contextual. There is just too much difference between people and their capabilities, knowledge and experiences – to say nothing of how all of that applies to the question at hand – to be able to declare definitively who is truly smart.

Participation

The world is full of actors and analysts.

I am an analyst.

I like to understand things. I think I really need to understand things. Which requires observation. Which I do best when I’m a little detached from what’s going on. So I sit on the sidelines, away from the action. By choice. It’s where I can observe and analyze. And understand.

Actors are in the middle of everything. They make decisions quickly, they relish the interactions, they’re always in motion. They make life fun, and make it frustrating, depending on which actions they take. But they take action.

Analysts are important. We help our communities understand what’s happening and why. Our work informs actions. We are the experts. We study, we learn, we apply our knowledge, and we explain how things work, why things happen, what we can and can’t do about things we want to change. Not everyone listens, of course, but we’re still important.

Actors are also important. We need people who will commit themselves – and ourselves – to action. They move the ball forward. They create the changes we see in our communities. They are the people in the ring. They strive, usually to make things better for us all. We don’t always agree with what they do, but we still need people to do things.

We have another group in our communities as well, however. These people aren’t particularly productive. They don’t add much of anything at all.

Spectators.

They don’t extend themselves to understand. They don’t take action to change their communities. Or themselves. They take what they earn, but they don’t give back to the broader world around them.

We have far too many spectators. People who do their work, come home to watch television, eat with their family, then do the same thing again the next day. They aren’t thinking about why the world is the way it is and how it might be better. And they aren’t committing themselves to action on behalf of others either. They aren’t extending themselves for others beyond their circle of friends and family, and that lack of effort isn’t helping – and when we have a community that is hostile to some of its members, it might actually be hurting – other people.

I’m not saying they are bad people. I do believe that the sum of each of our individual failings is the same. Our individual lots are not the issue here.

I am saying that if they engaged, it would help lighten the load that many of the other members of our community have to carry. Our collective lot is the issue. I believe that if a fellow person is diminished, then we are not optimizing our collective well-being. Is it up to that individual to make the effort to not be diminished? Yes. And it is also up to each of us in our community to make the effort so that no one in our community is diminished.

I believe we are, in part, our brothers’ and sisters’ keeper. We may not have the largest part to play in his or her individual success, but we still have a part in it.

So let’s play that part. Analyst or actor, it doesn’t matter. Just don’t be a spectator.

Thunder Road

Thunder Road has been the source of my favorite line in all of music since I’ve had a favorite line in all of music: You ain’t a beauty, but, hey, you’re all right.

But as I’ve been listening to it lately as a middle-aged guy, I’ve been thinking more about the whole song. Not as a part of an album (which is a remarkable whole). And I know next to nothing about music, so my reflection is mainly just about what it says in words.

I find it insightful. It articulates emotions specific to a particular time of life, emotions that feel urgent at that time, but perhaps deceptively so when observed from the distance of middle age, when you know there’s almost always another chance, another opportunity coming. Patience, in other words, is usually rewarded. But I suppose that makes for less compelling lyrics. . . .

The screen door slams, Mary’s dress waves
Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays
Roy Orbison singing for the lonely
Hey, that’s me and I want you only
Don’t turn me home again, I just can’t face myself alone again
Don’t run back inside, darling, you know just what I’m here for
So you’re scared and you’re thinking that maybe we ain’t that young anymore
Show a little faith, there’s magic in the night
You ain’t a beauty but, hey, you’re alright
Oh, and that’s alright with me

The song starts with a start, a door slamming, but immediately makes it clear that our narrator is in love. Soft language follows – “Mary’s dress waves” – with an image that rivals any description of any lover anywhere: “Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays.” What listener can’t superimpose an image of his own love as he hears that line? And then Springsteen invokes one of the great classic plaintive songs of the rock era – Roy Orbison’s Only the Lonely – and begs to be heard: “Don’t turn me home again.”

But then he shifts his tone, challenges his love to confront their future: “Don’t run back inside,” and “So you’re scared and you’re thinking that maybe we ain’t that young anymore.” And then he encourages, cajoles even: “Show a little faith, there’s magic in the night.” And then he professes his love in the most Springsteenian way ever: “You ain’t a beauty but, hey, you’re all right, Oh, and that’s all right with me.” He tells her that he sees her as she is, and that her flawed self is still perfect for him. It’s the most brilliant “I love you” ever, because it acknowledges the puzzle of love, that imperfect beings can be perfect in the context of the right relationship.

You can hide ‘neath your covers and study your pain
Make crosses from your lovers, throw roses in the rain
Waste your summer praying in vain
For a savior to rise from these streets
Well now, I ain’t no hero, that’s understood
All the redemption I can offer, girl, is beneath this dirty hood
With a chance to make it good somehow
Hey, what else can we do now?
Except roll down the window and let the wind blow back your hair
Well, the night’s busting open, these two lanes will take us anywhere
We got one last chance to make it real
To trade in these wings on some wheels
Climb in back, heaven’s waiting on down the tracks

The song gains momentum in the second verse, as Springsteen makes his case for change. First he paints the futility of the status quo: “You can. . . Waste your summer praying in vain for a savior to rise from these streets.” He points out his love’s passivity, waiting for someone else to change her circumstance, which becomes perhaps a little ironic when he subsequently presents himself as a non-heroic savior of sorts. And he frames his question as a both a gamble – “With a chance to make it good somehow” – and no choice at all – “what else can we do now?”

His pitch then is for escape, for throwing off the frustration of their current situation for the uncertainty of leaving it behind, betting that “heaven’s waiting” somewhere down the road. And without a particular destination to offer, at least not yet, he focuses on the feeling of the journey: “roll down the window and let the wind blow back your hair.”

This is youth speaking, impatient for change, believing anything is better than this current situation, willing to chuck it all because he hasn’t built up enough of an investment to consider keeping it. He’s a have-not-wants-more. And now he’s selling his solution to the woman he loves, a woman who seems to be hesitant to embrace it.

Oh oh, come take my hand
We’re riding out tonight to case the promised land
Oh oh oh oh, Thunder Road
Oh, Thunder Road, oh, Thunder Road
Lying out there like a killer in the sun
Hey, I know it’s late, we can make it if we run
Oh oh oh oh, Thunder Road
Sit tight, take hold, Thunder Road

The chorus distills all the relevant pieces into a few lines. It’s a stirring argument to be sure, especially when paired with the music, ratcheting up the intensity, building energy beneath the words. He won’t go alone: “come take my hand.” His urgency grows – “Hey, I know it’s late, we can make it if we run” (yet another great, great line!) – and the non-specific destination shimmers in the distance: “. . . the promised land.”

Well, I got this guitar and I learned how to make it talk
And my car’s out back if you’re ready to take that long walk
From your front porch to my front seat
The door’s open but the ride ain’t free
And I know you’re lonely for words that I ain’t spoken
But tonight we’ll be free, all the promises’ll be broken

He finally gets to the one line in the song that’s forward looking and specific, the promise of what the future will look like once they’ve made their escape: “I got this guitar and I learned how to make it talk.” And he follows it up with his hard close: “my car’s out back if you’re ready to take that long walk.” He recognizes that it’s a long walk – a tough decision – for her, and he’s a full-discloser too: “The door’s open but the ride ain’t free.” If she joins him, he sees it as a commitment, to him, to his escape, to the future he sees. He acknowledges that he hasn’t made an explicit commitment to her – “I know you’re lonely for words that I ain’t spoken” – and he still doesn’t, telling her instead that this act of escape will be a paradigm breaker, a self-evident act of commitment so that no explicit promise of love is needed.

There were ghosts in the eyes of all the boys you sent away
They haunt this dusty beach road in the skeleton frames of burned-out Chevrolets
They scream your name at night in the street
Your graduation gown lies in rags at their feet
And in the lonely cool before dawn
You hear their engines rolling on
But when you get to the porch, they’re gone on the wind
So Mary, climb in
It’s a town full of losers, I’m pulling out of here to win

Curiously, he continues selling past the close, digging into Mary’s psyche, recounting her history. She’s had other opportunities: “. . . ghosts in the eyes of all the boys you sent away,” and those lost opportunities haunt her, those suitors screaming her name “at night in the street.” She hasn’t gone, perhaps because they didn’t treat her well – her “graduation gown lies in rags at their feet” – but by morning she regrets it, only to find it’s too late: “But when you get to the porch, they’re gone on the wind.” The message is laid bare: “So Mary, climb in.” Don’t face more regret in the morning. “It’s a town full of losers” – there’s nothing for you here. Come with me, because “I’m pulling out of here to win.”

What I’ve missed for the many years I’ve been listening to this song is that it’s not really about Springsteen and his act of escape. Rather, it’s a sensitive portrayal of Mary, the tension between her fears and hopes, the story of a soul caught between wanting more but not sure how to get it. It’s Springsteen talking, but throughout he is not just aware of Mary, she is the protagonist of the song. He is merely the vehicle of her potential happiness. And, interestingly, we don’t know how her story ends by the end of the song – I like to think she left with him, but who knows? After all, her history suggests otherwise. Still, it’s Springsteen, and with a song that builds so relentlessly and irresistibly to its crescendo, I can’t imagine she deflates that energy by denying it.

Judging, cont.

We are not finished products until we draw our last breath. Perhaps not even then, but certainly up until then.

I think we often forget that.

As a younger person, I believed things I now find abhorrent. I advocated gay bashing to my teenage friends. I used slurs to refer to gays, Hispanics, and Asians. I repeated horribly insensitive jokes, and I was a central player in any number of misogynist pranks. Instead of asking directly for what I wanted, I tried to manipulate other people to achieve my ends indirectly.

In sum, I have behaved very badly in the past, and truth be told I sometimes take shortcuts even now.

So I have a hard time condemning anyone for expressing thoughts that I disagree with.

I don’t condone those thoughts. I don’t sanction them. But I know from my own experience that people, especially young people, have many miles to go in their lives’ journeys, and they can change their views.

Not only are we quick to judge people these days, we are unforgiving in those judgments, leaving no room for growth. We’re writing people off. Which seems super counterproductive to me. It’s wasteful – and I detest waste. And it doesn’t change hearts and minds, which is what we’ll need to do if we are to move the needle on important issues.

It’s your basic strong-arm approach, an I’m-going-to-force-you-to-do-what-I-want play. It’s easier than engaging in earnest discussion, dealing with the emotion of talking to people with fundamentally different perspectives and values – at least as they stand today. But I think we can do better.

And it starts with assuming the best of our fellow people. That common ground exists. That discussion can expose the assumptions we hold that explain our differences. That once those differences are exposed we can compare and assess them. And that when we do compare and assess them, that we can reasonably agree on a path forward.

We short-circuit that process by condemning people, refusing to engage with them, and we do even more damage by locking people into the mental and/or emotional space they occupy today, by not providing room to change their minds. It cements preconceptions, eliminates the opportunity for discussion, which destroys the chance to make even a little progress together.

Judging others helps exactly no situation. And I think that’s especially true now.

My Mother

I’m not a particularly good son to my mother, I think.

I do love her. Very much. More than I can articulate actually. I tell it to her on occasion. If you asked my mother I suspect she would say that I am haphazardly attentive. And she would say that she feels loved. Because she is a mother she gives her son the benefit of the doubt.

And I have probably left doubt.

I could do more. I should do more. But I am very self-absorbed. Not selfish. Not punitive. Not spiteful. But self-absorbed. It never occurs to me to do more until well after the fact.

I do live most of my life between my ears. I am marginally more present now than I was when I was younger. The benefits of exercising. It turns out that using your body is a very good way to get out of your head. But you can only make so many purses from a sow’s ear, which is to say I still think a lot. And most of that thinking is not about my mother. Or any other individual really.

And I feel guilty about that.

I believe relationships are a critical part of life. Connecting with others. Sharing experiences. Developing ideas informed by other people. Settling on a philosophy, on a world view, that includes other people’s perspectives. I do spend time thinking about how life works. For me. For others. Individually and collectively. But I don’t spend much time thinking about the people I know. What they may be doing. What they may be experiencing. And, most importantly, what they may be feeling.

Mild transgressions perhaps, at least when it comes to most other people.

But my mother?

Outwardly I am my father. I have his face and his voice and his mannerisms. We share many interests (except opera – he loves it. Really.). I am even-keeled like him. But inside, where my emotions meet my mind, I am my mother’s son. Smart. Maybe even very smart. Perceptive. Attentive to both context and details. We anticipate well, and we connect dots faster than most. And emotions terrify us, because we feel them so intensely we think they will unhinge us. Because emotional control is vitally important to us. I can’t explain why. It’s just very uncomfortable to feel like we aren’t in control of ourselves.

And yet I struggle to find mental and emotional space to consider this woman who is most like me. Who birthed me, fed me, nurtured me, taught me. To whom I owe more than I owe any other individual. I can’t seem to be bothered to repay that debt. Which probably makes me like every child ever, but still doesn’t assuage that guilt I feel.

At least when I think about it.

Differences

I am a product of my environment.

My family. Its genes and its values. My community. Its norms and expectations. My nation. Its identity and its archetypes.

My cousin isn’t.

I sometimes wonder if she might have a better answer than me. Not more or less right, but perhaps more effective at addressing the questions at hand: what’s the best way to secure yourself? Now, and for the future.

I am biased to independence. It seems the most secure path. And it feels like the most responsible path. The most moral path.

Of course, that’s because it aligns with my environmental expectations. Be self-sufficient. Avoid risk. Don’t put yourself at the mercy of other people – they are likely to choose themselves over you. And then where are you?

I think most people, at least in this country, feel the same.

But should we?

I heard some weeks ago that we are severely overinvested in personal transportation. 92% of cars at any given moment are parked. Sitting idle. So our desire for individual convenience has created an incredible automobile glut. Nine out of 10 cars are not in use, but waiting to be used. There are significant consequences for that decision as well: we are polluting our environment, we lose time in traffic congestion, we are more isolated from each other. The waste and damage is huge compared to other, more communal solutions to moving ourselves around.

Could we be making the same mistake in securing our futures?

My cousin has found a community that seems to be highly committed to each other. Their emotional connections seem to be deep, and they seem to value each other for what they are rather than for what they can give directly in return. What my cousin gives to the older members of that community is not expected to be repaid to her by those older people. I believe her expectation is that when she is older there will be a younger person willing to give the necessary time and energy to her care.

That feels like a very risky bet to me. And probably to most people who read this. But isn’t it wasteful for us all to prepare for a future independently?

Just as all those cars sit idle, a lot of the assets we accumulate to safeguard our future won’t be used by us. We accumulate them for security, just in case we need them. Like any good actuary would tell us though, some of us will live long lives and some of us won’t. If we all prepare to live to 90 or 95, then the person who dies at 75 or at 70 or at 65 is wasting resources, saving assets he or she will never use. If we had a communal pool of assets that we all contribute to – and an actuary would be very helpful to determine what that level would be – then those excess resources being invested could be put to use for other purposes.

This isn’t an original thought. It is, of course, the foundation of our social security system – we all pay in, and we all benefit, though not in the same proportion. For this to work, for people to feel good about it, we have to accept that some of us will be lucky with our lives’ duration and some of us will be unlucky. So be it.

It requires a profound shift in our communal values and expectations, a reordering of our communal priorities, and, perhaps hardest of all, a ceding of control. I am very reluctant to trust my fellow people to take care of me when I am vulnerable. I want to control that part of my life.

Understandably, perhaps. But necessarily? I wonder.

Cycling

I cycled the Katy Trail – at least part of it – last weekend with a couple of my best friends from college.

It was an interesting trip, and, as usual for these types of unusual experiences, highly informative. I learned so much. About Missouri. About my friends. And mostly about myself.

Central Missouri, at least along the Missouri River, is a beautiful, largely friendly place. For most of the ride we had the river on one side and bluffs on the other. The river is huge, much beefier than anything I’m used to seeing, and the bluffs are either exposed and looming or covered in vegetation and towering. Trailside trees make canopies in spots, tunnels in others. And when the river is away from the trail, fields of corn and soybeans cover the floodplain. The folks in the towns along the trail are welcoming. Very open and very helpful (with the exception of one intimidating general-store owner). And they love their Cardinals if shirts and hats are an accurate indication of such sentiments. . . .

Our ride went from Boonville to St. Charles, about 155 miles, with another 20-ish in side trips to Jefferson City and Hermann, over 4 days. It is the longest ride by far either of my friends have made, and so it tested them. It was easier for one than the other.

My first friend has arthritis and is significantly overweight, though he has been losing weight for a few months, and he did prepare for the ride by going on regular weekend rides in Chicago. He also drew the short straw on the rented bikes, getting the oldest and biggest and heaviest bike among the three of us. He struggled physically, slowing as the day and days went along. His arthritis affected him as he stayed in the same position on the bike for hours, and he spent a lot of the first couple days deep in the pain cave. He never complained, but it seemed to me that he often wondered if he’d be able to finish the ride. On the third day his rear wheel went way out of true, so we passed the bike around – when he was on one of the other bikes, his ride felt a lot better, which lifted his mood, and the fourth day he got a new bike, which made a huge difference in how he felt. It was so gratifying to see him finish the ride and to see in him the pride that comes with completing something that is really hard to do.

My other friend had the opposite experience: he was the nervous one going into the ride, but when we got started he was nearly euphoric with how manageable he found it. He’s been training consistently for nearly a year now, and he dedicated a large part of his training in the weeks leading up to the ride to the bike. That preparation paid off big time. He could easily handle the pace and the distance, and the confidence that bloomed the first day just continued to grow over the rest of the trip. He was very pumped by the end, and so excited that he started talking about other trips we could do.

As for me, I enjoyed the ride, but for different reasons than I expected. I always like spending time with these friends, and being with them for 4 consecutive days was no strain at all. But where I thought the ride itself might be the background for more vivid interactions with my buddies it actually became the centerpiece of the time we spent together. We pedaled probably over 17 hours, and over that time I became first aware and then deeply appreciative of the act of cycling in a way I’ve never felt before. I realized that being outdoors, in nature, moving myself through space, gave me a deep and profound joy that was even more satisfying because it was also unexpected. That I got to share that joy with close friends added to the delight.

I wouldn’t hesitate to reprise the experience, preferably with company and even more preferably with the specific company I had on this ride, but my biggest learning was that I can enjoy such a trip even if I made it alone. And I like knowing that.

Timidity

Ah, cursed timidity! It has been my bane for the whole of my life.

I am smart. Maybe even very smart. I believe I’m generous. Kind. I don’t take myself seriously even as I am serious about my thoughts and ideas. I believe in the importance of living life for our own individual prosperity (broadly defined, to include emotional and intellectual satisfaction along with material wealth) as well as for our collective benefit, not sacrificing one for the other. My instincts are usually spot on, and, despite the current evidence of this paragraph to the contrary, I am humble enough to know that my strengths make me no more worthy of preference than any other person out there.

My faults are many too.

I spend most of my time between my own ears, often oblivious to what’s happening around me. I can be short-tempered, even irascible to those closest to me. I’m indifferent about keeping a clean house and yard, and it can take me a very long time to tackle important tasks that don’t inspire me. And, worst of all, I sometimes use my perceptive powers to wound people where they feel most vulnerable.

The scales may balance in favor of the good me, but the outcome is not overwhelming. What might make it more definitive is if I marshaled my not insignificant capabilities and did something impactful with them. Something that would make the world a better place. And not just marginally either.

Like found a company that would help people all over improve their health by exercising and eating better diets.

Or advocate about how we might find common ground and collectively manage our communities so they serve the needs of more people in more depth.

Or develop a curriculum that teaches us life skills that can prepare us to handle our own affairs more effectively.

Or create a resource that helps teenagers and twenty-somethings manage their transitions to independent, fully-functioning participants in our communities.

You see, ambition isn’t my limiting factor. Nor is capability. I believe I have everything it takes to create something significant. Vision. Ability to build a roadmap to success. Building a strong team. Communicating value to customers, employees, investors. Making decisions to benefit all stakeholders.

Everything, that is, except the willingness to take the risks to actually try.

Maybe one day I will find the courage to make the attempt and sustain it. My history warns against it, but I haven’t lost all hope.

I’m usually not one to quote beer commercials, but sometimes we find eternal truths in unexpected places, so: One life. Don’t blow it.