change – what a fool believes . . . .

New Year, New Home

2023 will be one of significant change for me (I hope).

Change in how I spend the bulk of my working day. How I earn a living. Where I earn that living. With whom I share my time. Yet as we turn the page into the new year my thoughts are with my parents, who will make just one significant change (I hope).

They are leaving their 4-bedroom home with its huge patio and multi-terraced garden in favor of a 2-bedroom apartment in a senior independent-living complex. I’ve been staying with my parents while waiting for my post-divorce life to begin, and though I was initially opposed to their move – they love their house, and my father is an enthusiastic gardener – I’ve come to see the wisdom of the move. They just don’t have the stamina they once did. My father is 87, my mother 82, and keeping up with the house and garden takes more energy than they want to give them. The reason for the move makes eminent sense. And I get it.

So they are not leaving their house kicking and screaming.

And yet it’s still not without stress.

Odds are that this new apartment will be the last place they live together. If – really, when – their health fails, it’s unlikely it will afflict them at the same time and in the same way, so even if they are in the same facility they may not be in the exact same place. And while we don’t talk about it, I think it’s clearly on their minds. How could it not be?

Mortality is the tie that binds us all. We all come face-to-face with it eventually, with varying degrees of grace. And this move for my parents is the most tangible evidence to date that they are approaching that point of their lives when their deaths are real possibilities. Not likely, but definitely possible, and more possible than it’s been before.

My father faced prostate cancer a few years ago and kidney cancer last year. He had moments of fear during each scare, but the information he got from his doctors in both cases was encouraging, and there were other options for treatment if the procedures didn’t succeed. We are eternally grateful that they did succeed. He was also in a small-plane crash in Tanzania 28 years ago, but that happened so fast he didn’t have time to reflect on his risk.

My mother has age-related macular degeneration, high blood pressure, and diabetes. Those illnesses erode her quality of life and hint of struggles to come, but none of them are currently life-threatening.

But moving into a smaller apartment with no yard to maintain is a tangible admission from them both that the scope of their remaining time is narrowing. My friend Jim’s parents lived in a retirement community that talked about the go-go years (where people were able to do anything they wanted), the slow-go years (where they could still do some of the things they wanted to do), and the no-go years (where they were limited to things in their residence). My parents are still enjoying their go-go years, but the end of that freedom is in sight, and the implications for what’s ahead are sobering to them.

And they are feeling it.

They’ll still make the move, but settling into a new community will include living with a new awareness, that, after a lifetime of moving about in the world, they might finally be in the last home they will see.

Divorce

My wife and I are divorcing.

We’ve been married more than 32 years. There’s no precipitating event. No outburst. No affair. No abuse. No addictions.

So why are we divorcing?

I don’t think we’ve ever been well-suited for each other. She wears her heart on her sleeve, sharing her thoughts and feelings broadly. I am very private. She tests ideas out loud, working through her thought processes verbally. When I speak, I’ve already decided. She seeks validation, and I am parsimonious with feedback. She lives spontaneously, changing her mind frequently. I make a plan and stick to it.

Early in our marriage we invested the time to resolve our conflicts and differences. And then, as time passed, we stopped trying. Cracks developed. And, unresolved, the cracks widened into fissures, the fissures into gaps, the gaps into chasms. Dawn made more of an effort than I did to fix what was happening in our marriage, but I didn’t have the emotional awareness to deal with our problems. Or the will to find it.

And so we find ourselves after 32 years not strangers but friends.

But not more than friends either. We are divorcing amicably, as you’d expect of friends, even friends who share children.

We have wounds. We don’t trust each other with our emotional well-being. I have hurt her by rejecting her (her version); she has hurt me by not following through on commitments (my version). Both have merit. Neither is the full story. As with most things between married couples.

In spite of our wounds, we don’t harbor ill will. Or at least not enough of it to complicate our dissolution. In fact, because of lower expectations with the transition from spouses to friends our relationship has been smoother. I hope it continues. I expect that we will remain friends, though it will likely be at a distance, at least until grandchildren pull us back into the same orbit. Among our differences are weather and social preferences: she likes active social scenes and cooler weather, while my ideals are warmer temperatures and few but meaningful interactions with others. Funnily enough, I’m likely to head to colder climes while she makes a go of it in the hot valleys of northern California.

Our daughters are taking the split well. We don’t blame each other, so they don’t either. And they do love us both after all. Damaging our relationships with our daughters is a worst-case scenario, and we are thankful that at least we made a very effective parenting team.

We’ve set intentions to treat each other both kindly and fairly, and we are walking that path. We have a long distance yet to go, and there are potential stressors related to our financial situations that could still roil the waters. We have engaged professionals to help us untangle our emotional wounds, handle the legal process, and counsel us on finances, so I hope that they can help us navigate those potential pitfalls (to mix a lot of metaphors!).

In our latest session, our divorce therapist asked us how we were feeling about our divorce and to what we were saying goodbye as we split. Dawn feels the loss keenly, though she fully believes it’s the preferrable outcome. I am not sad or grief-stricken but rather optimistic that we can have a more emotionally satisfying relationship once we say goodbye to the stress and tension that marked a lot of our married interactions.

Time will, of course, tell the tale. As it always does.

But I am hopeful.

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.

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.

Education

I wonder if we’re teaching our children what matters most.

Knowledge is important, of course, but in a world where data and information are at our fingertips – literally, given the proliferation of smartphones and other powerful devices that can educate us on any subject in seconds – perhaps we should be teaching them skills that help them interact with others. And not just in workplace settings either. Cooperation and collaboration in social groups and communities will be essential if we’re to achieve our greatest ambitions.

I believe that education should be the single highest priority for our societies. We owe all the members of our communities every chance to learn the things that they can leverage to build the kind of lives they want. It’s good for them, and it’s good for everyone else too, because if I’m doing what I enjoy, then I’m enthusiastically contributing to our society. And that’s the outcome we should be striving for. In jobs, in families, in communities.

We should be schooling everyone in the mechanics of healthy relationships, helping them to understand what a good relationship looks like and how to create one. And how to recognize and then navigate a relationship that’s not so good.

It’s probably a good idea to educate everyone in the principles of budgeting, estimating income and expenses, using credit appropriately. Basic financial skills can go a long way to alleviating stress in adult life, and that has so many benefits, especially with intimate relationships.

We might want to teach everyone the basics of transportation and home maintenance: how furnaces and home appliances work, how cars work, and how to keep them all in good working order.

And about nutrition – the kinds of nutrients we need, how to shop for groceries and how to prepare basic dishes.

In short, the kinds of things we need to know to live in balance with ourselves, with our neighbors, with our colleagues. It isn’t especially complicated – all of these topics and more can be taught in one high-school class period over a year.

Life skills.

Not more important than math or history or English or science. But still important enough to teach to a common level of understanding. I could have used something like it, and I believe most of my older teenage friends could have benefited just as much too.

Judgment

Finding truth seems much harder now than ever before. And I have sympathy – and no small amount of respect – for those among us who reserve their judgment because they don’t know what to believe. I believe in not judging any situation until you know enough to understand the essence of the issue and the conflict.

But I also believe in two other things: first, data and statistics; and second, that people are the same. Or rather that groups of people are the same in all ways that matter. And that it doesn’t take a whole lot of individuals to build a representative sample of humankind.

So what?

So if a group of people is getting dramatically different outcomes from the outcomes of other groups of people, then there is certainly something fundamentally different in their specific experience, and that difference lies outside themselves.

Take African-American men, for example.

I believe if you randomly assemble a group of African-American men, you will have a normal distribution of smart and dumb ones, tall and short ones, ones with glasses and braces and speech impediments, calm ones and hot-headed ones, rule-breakers and rule-followers, loyal and disloyal ones, and on and on for almost every other trait you can think of. What you won’t have is a normal distribution of age, of incarceration, of life expectancy. And since I believe that any group of people is essentially the same as any other group of people, those statistical deviations from the norm are not inherent in the group of African-American men, but rather result from external forces acting on that group. So something out of the ordinary is happening to African-American men. And it’s having a significant negative impact on them.

So do I need to understand the details of every shooting of an African-American man to judge that something is very much amiss in how that particular group is experiencing life in our great nation? I don’t think so. And that mortality, the worst outcome imaginable, should inspire those of us who believe in both data and essential human equality to move off the I-can’t-judge sideline and into action.

My Daughter

My oldest daughter graduated from college over the weekend.

Such milestones prompt reflection for me. I couldn’t help but relive her birth, the delight I felt in her infancy, the mental and emotional turbulence of seeing her navigate her young life, cheering (and sometimes cringing) as she faced fears and tackled new challenges with varying degrees of success, balancing support for her with coaching and even discipline. I was better at the coaching and discipline, I’m afraid.

With some chagrin I admit that she emulated my study habits in her early academic career, procrastinating on homework and projects until she absolutely had to begin. As much as she was afraid of engaging with her work – afraid she wouldn’t measure up, I suspect – she couldn’t let her teachers down by failing to turn in something. I saw a lot of myself in her then: awareness of her talents, but unsure if they would really translate to excellence, and very much afraid to find out.

Some of my favorite memories of time with her were very stressful. She demands much energy at the best of times, but when she had a school project due, well, anxiety ran very high. Still, once we had a plan, we worked well together. She’s always been able to focus on the task at hand once she settles on it.

CLB Graduation Steps 4 Blog Our work together started with her fourth-grade California history project. We made a model of a gold-rush settlement called Squabbletown mostly out of popsicle sticks. It took many steps – we had to make the ground, paint it, add foliage, build and assemble the buildings – all of which we crammed into the weekend before it was due. Naturally.

She started off the same in middle school. Her project then was to build a model of an Egyptian sarcophagus. Again, multiple steps of designing the coffin, finding materials, painting, assembling, and writing a narrative. All of which we crammed into the weekend before it was due. Same with a model of the Parthenon.

And then she parted ways with my own middle-school self (that extended through my college graduation, and, to be honest, beyond). She found that the stress of delaying her projects affected her much worse than the thought that she might not deliver an acceptable product.

In seventh grade she started planning her projects, finishing them well before their due dates and enhancing her happiness greatly. She stopped needing my help. I had been the training wheels for her academic bicycle ride, and, as is the fate of parents throughout time, I was sidelined to her developing competence. And as much as I hoped for that transition, as much as I ache to see her blossom into all of her abilities, I miss not the uncertain and underconfident little girl (though I loved that little girl fiercely) but rather the tangible value I provided that she needed then and doesn’t need now. I have to admit that I’m a bit adrift, searching for the things that she needs from me now. The challenge is no longer hers, but mine, and I’ve not built all the habits or mastered the skills that will tell me what those are. But I do strive, because I believe that she needs me, even if I don’t know exactly how.

Watching her become not just more capable but also more aware of her talents and more sure of her efforts has been as gratifying and as satisfying as anything I’ve ever done myself. Seeing her pride in her success, watching her with the friends who adore her, hearing the professors who praise her, it’s all so affirming. Of what she’s done to this point, but also of the efforts of her mother and me. Accepting her hard-won diploma (magna cum laude, no less – please forgive me) was a milestone for her.

And for me. And I hope there are many more milestones ahead.

Waste

There were two things my children could do when they were younger that guaranteed that I would lose my temper: say “I can’t,” and waste something. “I can’t” will most certainly come up another day, but waste has been on my mind quite a bit.

Actually, it’s always on my mind.

That waste is bad is an a priori statement to me. Waste erases whatever time and whatever energy that went into producing something. And it also aborts whatever else could have been produced with the time and energy that was tossed away. We lose twice: we junk something of value, and we are without the alternate uses of the resources that produced it.

I know waste is inevitable. But I heard today that we throw out almost half the food we produce. Half. That shouldn’t be inevitable.

And I am as guilty as anyone. I do our menu planning and most of our grocery shopping. And on a weekly basis we throw out vegetables, fruit, meat, and a lot of leftovers that spoil because the food plan was too robust. Soups that looked good in the store didn’t find any takers in our house, and their expiration dates passed while they were in our pantry. We’ve opened our share of tortilla chips gone rancid while they sat in the garage, because they were the second half of a buy-one-get-one-free promotion that came at a time when we only wanted one bag.

But we waste more than food. Electricity cools empty houses. Cars idle in parking lots. We’re oblivious to time as it passes while we scroll further down our Facebook feeds. We have dreams, we make plans, and then we leave them to wither.

And I’m as guilty as anyone. I want to do better. But can I?

Blame exhaustion from our busy lives. Blame our disposable culture that encourages us to get rid of things when we tire of them. Blame our distractions. But really, blame ourselves. We choose what we do, and we own our choices. I hope I can do better.