The ho-hum version

Chapter 194

“ . . . when you consider how short life can be, you create more meaning in the world.” Rath

This chapter is back to the idea of time versus meaning/significance. Its an idea that is persistently popping up in my reading and thoughts. The ho-hum version of this theory is that the less time you have, the more intense, layered, dense, meaningful, significant and powerful each one of those lessened hours will be. Or can be. I think that is a lot of BS frankly.

Less time creates a sense of urgency in some perhaps, and so you can observe an upswing in intensity and focus and productivity - and I think Tom Rath the author, falls into this category. Others appear to be disempowered by their compressed timeline, and do nothing of the sort. They languish about bemoaning their shortened timeline to accomplish whatever. My relative talks about this, remorseful in his speech about, how he hasn’t accomplished anything in the third decade of this life. Now he is beginning the fourth and I still don’t see any difference in his daily choices and actions. As Anne Dillard said, “how we spend our days is how we spend our days” or something to that effect. 

So I am suggesting that how much time (which no one ever really knows the precise amount) we have remaining or have spent already is neither here nor there. Producers will producer, and talkers will talk, and doers will do, and dreamers will dream, and video gamers will play video games. You can choose (up to a point) which of those people you will be, and that choice will show itself each day as you do whatever it is that you chose.

Choose well.

Do well.

Change the world.

Burning hours

Chapter 192

“...time is more valuable when you can see your mortality on the horizon.” Rath

At least your perception of time is more valuable. Its a change in its variable. Life moves from being this seemingly endless commodity to a seemingly very limited commodity. One that you can’t purchase more of! One that you can’t make more of! There is no “Time Store” anywhere. No one can buy more time. The richest and the poorest among us are in the same quandary, there is no more time to be had. Your time gas tank has a limited number of days in it, and that cannot be changed.

However, even though the amount cannot be changed, the quality can. How each hour is utilized and spent can be changed. How you choose to spend your allotted tank of hours is a choice you are making all the time, no pun intended. You choose each hour how to burn that one. You may not be active and intentional in your choice, but passively sitting in your chair is a choice too. This is part of being 100% responsible for yourself; recognizing this choice, and taking an active role in how they are burned and used.

You can do a great deal more with each one of your hours than you have to date. You know you can. You could change the world with your hours! You know you can. You could do something significant and meaningful with your hours. You could foster a child, ski a mountain, produce something better at work, call a friend (or enemy) that needs encouragement, you could mentor a co-worker, repair the neighbor’s car, learn to play the piccolo, . . . oh you get the picture. 

Pretty much its totally on you how you burn your hours.

Richer still

Chapter 191

“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others?” —DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

This is a follow up to the chapter from yesterday. I find most people, including me, like this in idea form mostly.  Its a fine something to talk about, but it is not something that many pull the trigger on, at Life scale. And then interestingly enough, everyone THINKS they have! No matter how little they actually did for others, they measure themselves as great and generous people. People defend their great and generous acts for others, with a ferocity that always amazes me. This confuses me generally, because if you are actually generous and great with actions for others, won’t that be self-evident? I think so, and I have been in the service industry a very long time.

So don’t toot your own horn, others will when you consistently do for others. I see this happen every week with some member of my family. The really crucial piece to Dr King’s statement is the scope that he presses here - that this is THE question in life, the most important one, the quantifier of a life well lived, or not. If you find that you interest in this blog is dimming, then you most need to reconsider how much of your life is oriented toward yourself, and how much of your life is oriented toward others.

How to have the richest life

Chapter 190

“Life is not what you get out of it . . . it's what you put back in.” Rath

And sometimes I am not getting much out of it because I am not putting anything into it. There are times it is incredibly hard to put anything into it, like when I am jet lagged out of my mind, when I am feeling overwhelmed, when your losses are piling up and your wins are nowhere to be found, when you are trapped between two impossible responsibilities, and when your heart is not in it at all. I get it. These things, and more, are very real, but they are also excuses to not put anything into it. These matters seem to overcome any resolve you may have made about putting in more. I get it, I experience this too, but still . . . 

Life. It is a paradox of time - it crawls very slowly when you are experiencing it moment by moment, like when your kid is puking all night and you get to be the one who cleans up puke in your family. And three decades are gone in a puff of smoke when you are looking back on it, like I am right now sitting at this table writing this and remembering and also mulling over the trap my wife has set for me to attend a Valentines dinner on Sunday. All these words about the paradox are important because you have to keep your input-into-life-engine running steady or puff of smoke later, you have missed your opportunity and you didn’t.

So steady as she goes contributions likely add up to some decent input into life (pay attention here men!). But actually Tom Rath is talking about serving others and leading others, and making life about others, and that is what HE means by pulling effort into life, and experiencing a meaningful life in return.

So don’t get distracted by all that is distracting.

Raise your output levels for others significantly.

Experience a very rich life.

Scarys are relative

Chapter 189

“Life is scary. So what are we going to do, curl up in a corner and hide from it?” - Cardello 

I have lived the last 25 plus years in the Slavic world. It has always amazed me at how people’s perceptions of where I live, are skewed and scary. But then again, they are scared of their neighbors in America, so the former Yugoslavia and Russia are extra scary to them.

But these places aren’t scary. They are just regular people who love their parents, love their children, who want to love and laugh and grow old with people they care about.

The scary things in life are losing these loved ones, or taking risks, or mortality, or failing to reach your potential. These scarys (and all the others) are relative to the person. As a person who has flown millions and millions of miles around and around the planet for decades, it always seemed so strange to me that my granny Ruth’s greatest fear was flying in an airplane. On the other hand, granny Ruth wasn’t the least bit respectful about poking an 1800 pound bull in the ass with her walking stick, when she was in her 80’s! Something I would never do. Like I said, relative.

We all have parts of life and living that scare us and terrify us. And this freezes most people. Causes them to be incapable of taking action, of moving forward. The scary parts of life freeze them solid. It reduces their lives to small circles of repeating narratives of all they have to be scared of, and they stop living.

Don’t.

Runnin’ on empty

Chapter 188

“You can’t parent or work or wife or whatever other verbs you’ve got going on when you’re completely depleted.” Score

Being 100% completely responsible for yourself is easier at some times than at others. When you are parenting is the most difficult I have found so far, whether it is your small children or your parents that you are parenting, these can be the most intrusive times in life - where another person’s agenda or needs supersede’s your own. When they are little and when they are old, they just need more of you and there are few options.

But  you still have to PTA, protect the asset, which is you, because your efforts are most critical. Without you, they will be very vulnerable. If you don’t take care of the asset, no one will. It is not selfish, it is necessary and wise. Allowing yourself to become completely depleted may win you awards for sacrifice, but none for caring and getting your stuff done around the world.

I used to work for an organization that promoted and admired the sacrificial martyr syndrome, but hey folks pay attention, even they have dumped this model because the price is too high. Obviously it is too high for the person that has destroyed their reserve and capacity to be effective and helpful, but it affects everyone around them as well and that includes the organization that they work for or with. 

Or you may have “some other verb” going on in your life, it doesn’t matter. You do. And if you allow your tank to get too empty, then you damage the body and the person you are at your best.

The bottom line is everyone pays, when you go too far.

Little Debbie’s decision

Chapter 187

“I can feel your nutritional judgment,” Score

We all do this to others. And former heavyweights like myself can be the worse. Stop. Now. You are 100% responsible for you and no other. I am 100% responsible for me and no other. Heck Brenda still eats Little Debbie Double Chocolate Fudge bars and keeps them in the house!! That stuff is double lard bucket poison and still . . . its her decision, not mine.  Its my decision to not partake of the Little Debbies with her. Because we all know there is NOTHING little about Debbie. Debbie is going the wrong way nutritionally and weight wise, but that is Debbie’s decision. She has to live with results of her decisions.

Overweight people bear the brunt of this nutritional judgement. We pour out all kinds of condemnation on heavy people eating anything other than rabbit food. Thin people chugging beer and eating fries and hamburgers, don’t even warrant a pop on our nutritional radar. This is so wrong. I am trying real reform in my heart and mind on this one.

Family get togethers and church dinners are the worst. Everyone has brought their “special dishes” which are often the tastiest, while being the nutritional plague of death. The whole table is covered with these special dishes. And the dessert table is about to buckle under the weight of all that is sitting on it. Nutritional hazards are everywhere! There is no escape!

Ok I take it back, travel is the worse. Either you have the fewest horrible choices ever, like on the plane, or the fare in the train station, airport or exits along the highway are the worst (nutritionally) for you.

How will we respond

Chapter 185

"I know what I have to do, and I'm going to do whatever it takes. If I do it, I'll come out a winner, and it doesn't matter what anyone else does." ~ Florence Griffith Joyner

There are two critical elements here; clarity and determination. 

Clarity is the first and most difficult part. Seeing what the situation is, what is required, what the next steps are, how this all fits into what you are accomplishing, the big picture, the fine details, whatever and however you want to describe it, clarity is difficult for everyone. Clarity about whatever you are deciding or trying to understand is a rare gift. One I seek all the time. It is more valuable than you can imagine. But most of our lives and much of our thinking is murky and fuzzy and very vague. Tell me you don’t feel it too!

But when you find clarity, then you have to act on it or the value drains away. That is where determination comes in. Determination to take action more precisely. This is the grit, the unstoppable persistence that makes your life happen regardless of what you are handed. Makes your life happen in ways that you choose — because this is the only choice remaining much of the time — how we will respond. Few of us get to choose what happens to us.

Finally there is reflection, a weighing of the results, a decision that if I follow my two critical elements here, what others do won’t matter one bit to me. This is a declaration and explanation of the intensity of our focus. This is why FGJ was such an incredible winner.

storms of thought

Chapter 186

“Life does not consist mainly—or even largely—of facts and happenings. It consists mainly of the storm of thoughts that is forever blowing through one’s head.” —Mark Twain

A storm of thoughts. How precise! If everyone else’s mental screens are like mine, I can run through two dozen different films clips in less than 60 seconds. And I don’t think that mine is the worse of it. Others I talk to have even larger storms of though scrolling through their brains every day every minute. Containing and constraining these storms is serious work.

But let’s be honest here, even when we are in the zone and fully focused on a task, these storms are at least still rolling on the horizon of our mind, waiting for a moment when the barriers are down to come flooding in again. Perhaps we just need to change our posture toward these storms of thought? As Twain said, they are life. 

But what kind of life? I mean I am more than ok with the storm of thoughts at times throughout the day, but if I want to get anything important done, I have to find a place of restraint and disconnect from the storms of thought, so I can string at least two consecutive thoughts together and solve a problem or a challenge.

This is the discipline of a lifetime. It takes a tremendous mount of mental fortitude to reign in the chaos of the storms of thought, and provide some order and structure and high function. Let’s keep this one a priority!

Where all the combustion happens

Chapter 184

“Think about the significant issues renting space in your mind right now.” Art Petty

There are three important pieces here, “think” “significant issues” and “renting space”. But we need to look at them in reverse. 

What is renting space in your mind? Heck my dad can change his plans and behaviors based on what is renting space in MY mind, much less his. What do you have taking up space in your mind? What is eating all your bandwidth? What is consuming your mind? What is preventing you from falling asleep immediately at night? Write them all down. I call it a braindump. When I just empty out everything that is in there and put it on the paper and then I fall asleep more easily.

Significant issues. You should only give significant issues rental space. Utilize what you have and spend it on the significant things. Don’t waste your mental parking lot on unimportant things. This is more difficult than it sounds. Mental discipline is the last discipline, meaning it gets attention last in our list of priorities. Our mom’s yelled at us to clean our rooms, not our minds . . . unfortunately. Most people start gaining traction on mental discipline later in life, if at all, based on my observations. This is one of the great weaknesses of Western Culture. My Asian friends do not struggle with this but a fraction compared to my Western friends.

Thinking is where all the combustion happens. Its what moves the pistons. Without thinking, your mental engine is just a 400 pound paperweight.

“Think about the significant issues renting space in your mind right now.” Art Petty

Do it on purpose!

Chapter 183

Changing a mind is difficult work.

It is also ever challenging work. Please understand that we are not talking about force here. Nor are we talking about evangelistic conversations or any thing religious. Neither are we talking about overwhelming someone with loads of information and data. And do not think of this as the 180 degree variety of change, but rather incremental adjustments. Most people cannot manage quick large degree changes in their positions or mental constructions.

We are talking about persuasion, clarity and excitement. We are talking about relationship, community and interlocking social circles. This is the context in which changing a mind can happen. It takes time and then some more time. If you are a strong personality beware. You can win the argument and still lose. Still not change the mind in truth. Your heavy-handed-ness is usually a negative in this battle.

The point is not agreement on some point, its not that kind of changing the mind. Its helping them make an internal adjustment so that they can say no to things that harm them, yes to practices that help them, and narratives to win the day. They are the one’s who benefit from this mind-changing, not me or my group or tribe. In fact the whole point of this chapter is that, helping someone change their mind to their own benefit is powerful fulfilling work.

You do this all the time already, every time you show someone how to do something they are already doing, but better and easier, and suddenly they acknowledge that your way is better for them. You just changed their minds.

Now do it on purpose!

Stimulating peeps

Chapter 182

There is nothing more stimulating than an afternoon with bright intelligent people who are changing the world. Unfortunately this happens far too rarely - I need to change that in my life right now. No conversations about inane things like politics, sports, and the weather! These conversations were about people, principles and processes to help things get done around the world, to change the world, to lead and develop the people that we work with around the world.

Invigorating! Thinking about how we can help move things forward in so many people’s lives in Asia and Europe and Africa and the USA. Talking about the next international trip that is coming up in a couple of weeks. The cities and countries that we will be visiting and working in on this trip. The people again. Its always about the people we get to work with and interact with along the way.

I think few of us receive enough of this kind of mental stimulation, that changes the narrative of our lives, the narrative of our impact on the world. The world has thorny problems that need intense focus and energy to resolve them. Instead of politics sports and weather, conversations like these can actually get us started in the right direction to make a difference. It gets our eyes off of us and on to the potential influence we each carry inside of us to make a difference, if we can stop thinking about ourselves.

Find yourself some stimulating peeps and conversations each day and feel the flow of ideas, possibility, potential, force, power and change that can happen in your life.

Lazy dedication

Chapter 181

Obsessed is just a word the lazy use to describe the dedicated."

I am starting to thinking that more obsession with things that matter, is necessary. The competition for our attention is intensifying. Only the most dedicated . . . er, obsessed people can resist their schemes. Think about Cal Newport, a famous author and thinker and professor, who uses almost nothing electronic. That one choice eliminates about 90% of the access the Attention Economy has on Cal Newport. And you instantly think/ask why don’t we all do that?? And its a great question!! And then you face falls as you think of what that means for you, for others, and you realize that they (nor you) will pay that price.

But its not a price to be paid, but rather an opportunity to be grasped. That of course is what the dedicated (obsessed) person thinks. The general population would perceive that as a price to be paid. You are so the object! You are what is being bought and sold here. Its a loud world that can’t stop talking, and if you are hoping to ever find some mental space and focus, then you have to find your obsession, you have to dig into your dedication. Make it about something wildly important and change-the-world level significance. Stop being the product!

“Dang David you sound rather . . . “ Yeah this is what obsession/dedication looks like, in case you didn’t know. Its a bit evangelistic because heck, you want everyone else to experience the same benefits you have. You want everyone to stop being the product, and become the fulcrum on which important stuff gets done.

In life in between

Chapter 180

"There are only two options regarding commitment: you're either in or you're out. There's no such thing as life in between."

In the modern world, commitment  seems to have acquired an elastic meaning in the popular culture. It can be used to rate how involved a person is in a project or event. It can be a word used as a measurement of frequency of engagement (I even do this myself).  It is often used to describe the number of responsibilities as person has. 

But commitment is a restraining word. It has boundaries and borders and it boxes us in completely. And it is that last word we resist, why we strive to elasticize and dilute the meaning and concept of commitment. We all want a back door out, a clause that will free us from obligation, a get out of jail free card, where our commitment can be erased and undone and be free of all consequences from this as well.

People who are trying to have a life in between commitment and no commitment are delusional. There is no thing as life in between. If you think you are gaming the system and that you are in between, you actually are just not committed to whatever is in question. You. Are. Not. Committed. Your public posture may be that you are committed, but you know you aren’t.  If you are seriously committed to anything in this scenario it is a commitment to not be committed, a commitment to no boundaries, borders or boxes. 

Its a sad empty life, disguised as freedom and choice.

Avoiding wasted trips

Chapter 179

“I shake my head, feeling like I just went on a trip that wasn’t even needed.”

Do you ever feel this way? I do. Often. Really often. In conversations with people this happens most often. They tell me things I wish I never knew. They tell me far too much information. They tell me stuff that has no importance at all to why they are talking to me. These are all unneeded trips. And I find myself actually  shaking my head in the wonder of wasted emotion, drama, energy, time and relationship.

It can be as innocent (and still very irritating) as Earl telling me about how terrible his life as a child was, or as deadly as someone causing an argument between friends pointlessly. The people I enjoy best, and choose to spend the most time with when I have choices, are those who don’t take me on trips that are unnecessary.

And Joe Callaway’s advice from four years ago still rings true in my life, and I practice it every single day, that I don’t have to join every fight I am invited to. I don’t have to enter into every argument that I am invited to. Nor every disagreement. It has worked beautifully. But I do choose to keep my mouth closed much more than before. If you find that you are a person who MUST respond, then you have already join a trip that wasn’t even needed.

The best way to head things/matters off early is to guide the conversations you have. And when you find someone with whom this is an unnecessary action to take, spend more time with them!

The rest of your relationships will require you to ask better questions and steer more directly.

The consummate quitter

Chapter 178

"How am I to know what I can achieve if I quit?" ~ Jason Bishop

In my youth, I was the consummate quitter. At the first sign of difficulty, I was done. I quit the model car I was building, I quit piano lessons, I quit football, I quit homework, I quit collecting stamps, I quit work, I quit band, I quit any and everything that took any effort whatsoever. I was so lazy. I achieved little to nothing.

I was in my last half of my senior year in high school before I ever recall applying myself to something full on. “Full on” being relative to my past, because I am pretty sure I took short cuts even during my senior year. I know I took short cuts for decades after high school at every point I could. After so many years of practicing short cuts, I would argue that they too are a form of quitting - in the sense that I did not do all the heavy mental lifting myself.

Thankfully tenacity and persistence eventually took over my life, or I would likely still be quitting everything. As I sit here thinking about these 58 years of my life, it is difficult to see precisely when why and how tenacity and persistence came to be the cornerstone of my life, work and processes.

Brenda thinks is was just motivation to prove everyone wrong in their assumptions about me (but they HAD been watching me quit for 20 years), and she may be right. I think it likely has more to do with results. When I could no longer depend on anyone but me for the results in life and work, then the change began. And having a job that was before the public (for their daily judgement) added gas to that fire.

I have always greatly admired craftsmanship and excellence in workmanship. At some point it became clear that if I was ever going to produce something important, significant or of excellence, I was going to have to dig in deep. Somewhere along the line it became a habit. Now it is my daily work life.

Multiple worlds

Chapter 177

The confusion and tension of multiple worlds can be very stressful as you feel pulled first one way and then that way. This is the number one stress under the hood of my daily living. And most people who may read this won’t have any idea of what I am talking about, at least in a practical experiential way. I am certain you can follow the conversation mentally though.

I live in multiple worlds. I live in Eastern Europe and have for the last 20 plus years. The EE world is very not America. Oh I also find myself living in America 40% of the year since my mom and brother both passed away three years ago, and now there is just my dad and me. The third geographical and cultural world I live in, though not nearly as much as I want to, is Thailand, or SE Asia in general. All three places have great pluses and horrible negatives, and the reasons to be in all three places are compelling.

Few of you reading, this live in multiple geographical spaces, and you should be thankful. While it sounds really sexy on paper or a travel brochure, it is exhausting physically and mentally in the real world. “Home” is no longer a geographical space. That in and of itself is a discombobulating experience within your mind and heart.

But most of you reading this know, understand and experience the confusion and tension of multiple mental worlds. You have a job. You have a family. That’s two very different worlds. Perhaps you have a serious hobby or passion, and that would be another world.

The only way to navigate these worlds in a positive manner, at least for me, is be all present in whichever one you find yourself at the moment. 

Now if they would just stop overlapping . . . 

Let’s go upstream!

Chapter 176

"There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.” - Bishop Desmond Tutu

There are real problems in the world. People need rescuing there is no doubt. Seriously, there are situations where people need to be pulled from the river, of trafficking, drugs, slavery, conflict mining, they will never escape on their own, without outside assistance. This is a necessary action and should be one we do regularly and consistently. Don’t stop!

More effective in many situations, may be to address the situations, contexts, corollaries, causes and things which empower these evil practices and allow them to proliferate. I am often surprised at the answers. These matters are always more complex than you think or wish for them to be. But if you can resolve the challenge at this level, rather than only pulling people out their particular river, there is an exponential effect. The positive results pile up so much faster and more completely. Those who want to change the world at scale, go upstream and find out why they are falling in.  

Unfortunately, most people want to keep pulling folks out of the river, rather than go upstream. I find the same attitude present in relief versus development situations. People are far more willing to contribute to relief than development. But it is development that would prevent the need for relief many times. Going upstream helps address the causes and reasons why we have a disaster on our hands in the first place. Get upstream folks!

The bottom of things

Chapter 175

“I have been a happy man ever since January 1, 1990, when I no longer had an email address. I’d used email since about 1975, and it seems to me that 15 years of email is plenty for one lifetime. Email is a wonderful thing for people whose role in life is to be on top of things. But not for me; my role is to be on the bottom of things. What I do takes long hours of studying and uninterruptible concentration.” - Donald Knuth

I am moving steadily toward having my role be on the bottom of things. Because to do what I do well, I need long hours of studying and uninterrupted concentration. But I am not doing my job well. I do not get those long hours, and if I am lucky in my life I get long minutes here and there. I live in a triangle of relationships where silence is abhorred and thinking is never permitted. This is far more my personal challenge than email per se, but the principle is the same. All available mental bandwidth must be wasted on inane conversational noise. 

Concentration is impossible. Focus is out of the question. Studying is not even feasible. 

But email has the same distraction capacity for some as does inane conversation monologues for me. This long term situation has required me to sharpen my focus and intensity, while also reducing my overall work load, because I can’t keep back the ocean and this is as relentless as that. 

Knuth has the right idea, we have to take action to protect our most value asset, our best contributions to the world. What should you eliminate? Or mitigate? Do it now.

Bad cycles

Chapter 174

There are some stretches in life that seem to be part of the road that leads straight to hell. So far in the last days we have lost a major donor to the tune of $12000 annually, my dad is sicker than a dog, and my wife even more so, we have been in three hospitals in the last 24 hours, my truck quit running, and we have just run up thousands of dollars in medical bills, and oh yeah, I just had to cancel my wife’s flight for tomorrow, since she ain’t flying anywhere yet. And there is more! Remind me to never ever tell my kids that their mom is sick until after it is over and she is at home resting comfortably. 

While I love the fact that they love her and want to be helpful, crashing our cramped living situation in order “to help” ain’t helping nobody. Its making all these issues more difficult, because there is another mouth to feed, another bed to prepare, another person to accommodate, and frankly I am pretty snarly right now, running on three hours of sleep and three days of troubles. 

If you really want to be helpful do two things: 1. ask what would be helpful, 2 do that precisely no more no less. Unfortunately everybody has got to make it about themselves in the end (big sigh) and that is worse than no offer of assistance at all.

(Addendum) It was good to see one of my kids, even though it was a pointless trip. My truck is demon-possessed, as it started running properly for no reason at all. Best of all my wife is back to 100%. I am thankful for these matters from my heart.