Possibilities

Chapter 279

Were I to wish for anything I would not wish for wealth and power, but for the passion of the possible, that eye which everywhere, ever young, ever burning, sees possibility. Pleasure disappoints, not possibility. - Søren Kierkegaard

This is so rich, its difficult to know where to start, The never-disappointing-passion-of-the-possible vortex is one where we all should spend far more time. The passion of the possible. I would say that this one characteristic marks the majority of my clients around the world, more than any other. Heck, in some of them, it is what drives their entire lives!

Passion of the possible, is one of those elements that dreamers, thinkers, creatives, change-the-world peeps have in abundance. They are constantly “seeing” how things could be better, cleaner, more profitable, safer, more beautiful and wonderful, etc etc. Personally I think we all have this at some level, but that pursuit of wealth and power can truly sidetrack it and wreck the possibility train entirely. We have all seen it happen over and over. Half the idealistic people I went to college with, have been sidetracked by . . . something.

Passion of the possible needs room to grow and maneuver and to develop. Some call this, a third space, a neutral place where you have what you need (quiet, noise, coffee, ambience, etc) to let our passion for the possible run wild in our minds and hearts. Passion for the possible can be a little fragile sometimes, and so I would recommend removing all naysayers as far as possible from the passion of the possible. I call them saboteurs.

This is the path to no-disappointment living.

May smells

Chapter 278

Spring, storms and smells

The primary negative about living in farm country is that, well it smells like a farm most of the time. In case you don’t know precisely what that means, it means manure, poop, crap, shit. And yep, most of the time around these parts, it smells like one big outdoor bathroom. If you are in the farming business, that probably smells like money to you, but for the rest of us, it just smells bad.

Except for the Spring time. The smells of Spring overpower the smells of farm and for that reason alone May is an especially beautiful and wonderful time on the farm. Petunias, lilacs, roses, honeysuckle, and one hundred other blooms, make for some of the best heady perfume in the whole world. Riding my bike for 30-40 miles each morning is just a buffet of wonderful smells. I can’t get enough of this perfume of nature!

And Spring is also storm season, and we have already had some doozies! Last night I sat on the front porch and watched the light show, the wind, the rain. It rained so hard and the wind blew so strong, it got me wet even eight feet from the porch edge. And the night before, we had another storm, with ferocious lightening and I had left my blinds open so that I could enjoy it. And I did. What a light show at 02:00 am! And two weeks ago, we had tornados come through, and that was spectacular and terrifying. The most intense lightening I have ever seen in my whole life. But I could have passed on the twisters - too much damage was done.

Spring. A sensory delight. I love it!

Finite

Chapter 277

averting our gaze from our finitude - Popova

Sometimes I think that is all that we do in life, that everything action, activity, job, task, relationship, drama, emotion, want, wish, desire, and plan is all aimed at averting our gaze from our finitude. It is an intolerable thought to consider for most people, and so they don’t. They busy themselves with endless mindless bustle so that there is never any time or margin to consider our ends.

This would have been me too probably, up until four years ago. Then I got that terrible phone call from my niece that my brother was gone. Something broke. Something tore. Nothing will ever be the same again. Six months later, my mom was gone. Holes ripped deeper. No longer can I avert my gaze from my finitude. Its too close to home. Sitting right here with us ever day. I am in this chair, in this kitchen, on this May morning, because of those deaths. It changed the trajectory of my days. Forced a reckoning with my dad’s finitude. Realization that there are just the two of us now and all too soon, there may be only one of us.

Each day I ride my bicycle on a 30-40 mile trip, and the road carries me right to the place where we scattered my brother’s ashes. There is no averting of our gazes any longer. You can choose to let this make you more grateful, embrace your blessings, cherish your days and focus you. Or you can choose to let this make you angry at your lack of choice, lack of power, your hopelessness, horror at the shortness of your life, hopeless in the face of limits you did not choose.

Avert your gaze or not, it is still coming. And all you can do is choose how your are going to live now.

Forward

Chapter 276

Our experience of time always goes in one direction . . . Given that nothing is ever going to be the same, and that backwards isn’t an option, our only choice is forward. Godin

Forward motion. Its our only real choice. No matter how much you want it to be otherwise, no one has yet been able to move any direction but forward. Backwards isn’t an option, even though we spend an inordinate amount of time around here reminiscing about the past. The past can easily be 80% of our conversation around here. That is why I always have a “big project” for us to focus on and work on. That is the only way I have found so far to keep my dad firmly in the Now. Generally life is much more tolerable around here for me, if we keep the conversations in the Now or even the near Now, which is sometimes known as the recent past, which for my dad can be 72 years ago (and unless you think I am joking, mules were just part of the conversation/monologue going on the background while I was writing this. MULES!)

This is not living, this is trying to hold back time, or rewind it altogether. Won’t work. Never has. Our experience with time always goes in only one direction. Seth got it right, because that is what is, plain and simple. 

So what if we focused all our energy on making a better future? Rather than trying to return to something or to somewhere or to someone in our past? 

You might even get to enjoy those efforts.

Soaring

Chapter 275

Via negativa: improving by removing. “Via negativa can also be used to describe a similarly ‘negative’ way of improving one’s life; instead of concentrating on what you do, the focus turns to what you don’t do. -Tim Ferris

This is one of the most powerful ideas ever - improving by removing. I have been using it for a decade with clients, and I first heard of the concept from Marshall Goldsmith. He wrote about how most people need to remove 10 things from their lives, not add some new magical addition thing, to make forward progress. Nothing has impacted my daily structure of life, and my productivity more than learning what not to do.

Perhaps it is my personality, perhaps it was the timing of when I first read about it, but this approach resonated with me and made perfect sense. Not surprisingly I have made the hugest improvement gains in my life by practicing it. Although I have to admit that I have been doing this so long that it doesn’t feel like practicing, it just feels normal. It feels right. Like a wonderfully old comfortable pair of jeans.

For me, improving by removing, first involved relationships. Poisonous toxic unhealthy relationships. I had to change jobs (after 23 years) to weed that particular garden, but it proved to be the best decision ever. There are no words for how dramatically this changed everything. Then I improved by removing approval from others as something I sought. Wow! Then I improved by removing all the other boundaries that kept me locked up in a small tight psychic prison - and spread my wings to fly.

Been soaring ever since.

Don’t you want to try!

Misremembering

Chapter 274

Misremembering

The more time I spend with my aging parent the more de ja vue I have about my past and present. I am reminded about why I did not follow said parent into the career that he had. I am reminded about why I did not enjoy working with him in the past. And I am reminded why I moved 7000 miles away and did something completely other.

Don’t get me wrong, he is a genius, and amazing and has forgotten more than I will ever learn about his particular field of expertise. He is also a tyrant and arrogant and impossible to please and never responsible for when anything goes wrong. That would always be my fault in some fashion. However he is also generous and relentless and selfless. “David how can he be all those things?” you ask? Aren’t we all?

Granted, my parent only remembers how generous he is and how kind he was to us as kids. Yes you are correct in that I did not list that as one of his characteristics, because I neither see that nor remember that about him - he is misremembering. I can give you 100’s of factual examples. But that is not the point, to prove that my memories are more factually and historically accurate than are his. Misremembering is something we all do. Its about how we see ourselves and how we view our role in lives of those around us. We choose to see (imagine?) our best qualities, and forget (deny?) our negatives ones.

While I may remember my history with him with precision clarity, I am pretty sure that I am misremembering my how my own past played out. I am confident I play the role of hero in my mental review of my past, and that it has little factual historical accuracy. Maybe misremembering is a skill we develop so that we can live with ourselves.

Future polluting

Chapter 273

Anxiety pollutes the present with imagined problems and future responsibilities.

A constant rush to the NEXT thing ruins THIS thing.

Don’t squander the present on the future. Dan Rockwell

In the middle of the Coronavirus WWS (world wide shutdown) this has very true. Its been generally true in the West for a long while, and very very true in my life. Anxiety wears lots of different faces, from problem-solving to expectation obsessions, but I have never heard it described like Dan did here. Pollution. Polluting today and this moment. “But I am working on how to solve this problem” you argue, when in reality you are working on solving a “potential” problem in the future, that hasn’t happened yet. And so the Now is troubled with the possible problems of another day, and you and I lose the wonder and joy of the Now. If the future gets here, it will get here soon enough and have it’s own Now and possible future. All we have really is this moment, and no other.

Expectation obsession has us all running off in 40 different directions, what Dan calls the constant rush to the next thing. This one I have far too much experience with, the near future polluting any chance of the present to be as awesome as it is actually. I am 58 years old, and 48 of those years was a battle with the NEXT thing polluting the joy of THIS thing. The last 10 years I have been doing much better on this. I have been practicing, as my brother called it, “enjoying this for what it is, not what it’s not.”

You don’t have a future . . . at least not in the sense that you have a present. Don’t trade what you have for what you might have. 

Live in the moment.

Plan for future.

Let anxiety have no part of you. 

I was focused on the honeymoon

Chapter 272

Choosing to get married is easy, compared to the effort required to maintain that relationship over the years . . . any good large-scale decision ends with what Peter Gollwitzer calls an “ implementation intention” —a specific plan that will carry you forward - Art Markham

This is the strong effect of simple plans. It is the if x then y types of processes. I already do this in my morning routines and it has proved effective,  and honestly more and more effective (progressively better), these last 25 years. This works, and the person who begins any long term significant decision or commitment without thinking it through and planning a path to success is a fool, and likely doomed to failure on an epic unlearned scale.

But hey, almost all of us fail to do this well. The example I included from the quote above is a perfect illustration. Both man and woman spend all their time focused on the getting married part, the woman laser focused in on the ceremony and colors and flowers and guests, the man laser focused in on the honeymoon and married sex. Neither are focused on the relationship maintenance necessary for this marriage to bloom into a mutually satisfying relationship that endures for decades. I have never met a couple yet, that has a plan. Did you? Nah, me neither. I was focused on the honeymoon, et al.

I love this example because it is precisely the right instance where you and I can see the lack of results and the fallout of failing to have a plan. Yes we all got married and no many of you are not nearly as happy with that decision as you were the day you got married. You need, and needed a plan, a schematic of implementation intentions.

Get to it! Today is the first day of the rest of your life.

The cadre

Chapter 271

It takes skill and discipline to bat away the pests of bad perceptions, to separate reliable signals from deceptive ones, to filter out prejudice, expectation, and fear.”Ryan Holiday

I am surrounded in later life by a great cadre of friends that send me reliable signals and never deceptive ones. It is one of the sweetest blessings in my life. People I can depend on to tell me the truth and move me in the right directions. Even when they are wrong. Yes I meant to say that. They are human. They make mistakes. Sometimes they invite me in to what they are doing. And sometimes it tanks. But that is ok, because they always had more in the outcome than I did and the fact that it tanked hit them hard. I could give you more examples of this than you would think, but it doesn’t have too much pain, because I got reliable signals and there was no deception. I knew the risks before following them on whatever thing it was that we got our butts burned on.

This is the way to live. Most of these adventures with people you can trust, turn out lovely, and the ones that don’t make memorable lessons and epic stories. All my favorite memories and trips and fun and adventures and investments (good and bad) and choices and paths involve these guys at some level. As I get older, fortunately I have the option of where I spend my focus and my energy, and I spend it with people like these.

For far too long I had little option in who I had to work with and which circle of people I got to live my life out with. When I got the chance, these were the first changes I made in my life.

Solid.

Road kill

Chapter 270

"Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there." ~ Will Rogers

While there are times to just sit there, you can read yesterday’s chapter about that, most of the time, a lack of proactive energy to move you down the right track, will be a lack of stellar results. And Will Rogers is correct, in that other’s coming down your track will run over you if you keep sitting there. Get moving! I see lots of blogs from people I love and respect like Bernie and Seth urging you to publish, make, do, put it out there, less than perfect precise finished production, because they know too many perfectionists who will dawdle until the dawn of the next era before actual shipping anything.

I on the other hand, know too many lazy people. I am one too. Who regularly are filled with inertia and get nothing done. We lazy bones are not the endless polishers of perfection demanding that our work be just so before anyone else sees what we are producing. No we are liable to put out any form of unimaginable junk you hope to never see again, because we got started so late if we got started at all. While I personally have never done this, because I am more afraid of criticism than I am lazy, I can spot a Saturday-night-sermon-prep from 10,000 miles away. I can spot shoddy work in church from across the globe. If you know an area of work, then you can spot other lazybones from across the globe.

The point here is to get moving forward, and aim high. 

The only other choice is to get out of the way.

Reset

Chapter 269

Miles and miles and miles but I didn’t really go anywhere. It was one of those kinds of days. A Sunday. A 40 miler on the bicycle. Then a 60 mile trip on the Jeep to check on a possibility. Then an 80 mile trip in the old antique pickup to nowhere, just enjoying the purr of a 55 year old engine and a smooth road and a fine cigar, damn near perfect. These moments have to be scheduled into our modern overclocked lives, or they just won’t happen. Sad I know, but true.

So we scheduled a “day off” and rode and rode. Purposeless relaxing, brain in neutral, no work except mental wanderings about whatever you want. You need this, and you won’t ever get it, unless you schedule it. You need this so that you can recharge rejuvenate restore all your mental bits and pieces and get a new framework. You need this so that you can step back and view all that you are working on and see it differently and approach it differently. You need this so that you can reset all your internal whatever’s, its like shutting down your computer and then restarting it can solve a host of bugs and problems.

But you need this just because it is fun and pleasurable too. Sure I could have have keep pressing on with the big project we are working on right now and made “progress” in getting the 10 million actions that I still have to accomplished done. But it was time to stop and smell the roses and enjoy the day, and that was the progress most needed.

Enduring the long slog

Chapter 268

The current challenge for most folks is endurance. The rush and newness of the crisis has long worn off, and the new normal requires endurance from most folks, as they continue to mourn their losses from the recent past, real and percieved. This is no longer an adventure for most people, and it was never any fun for them, as they got laid off their jobs, and they have kids at home all day, and someone they love is very sick. These are real difficulties. As a person who had a member of my nuclear family seriously suffer with Coronavirus for over two weeks, that person was SO sick, none of these matters are humorous.

But most people didn’t lose their jobs and most people don’t have someone close to them who has the virus, and most of their losses are perceived losses. They are choosing to view them as losses. Now they need endurance. Lots of endurance. Georgia’s Governor does not have endurance. He was one of the last people to the table and the very first to leave, in giving this virus the respect it deserves. And what this points out to us is that there is a complete spectrum of folks needing endurance, from the most victimized with lost jobs and sick folks at home, to the most afraid like the Georgia Governor, to those least affected by all this shelter-at-home-don’t-gather-in-groups-social-distancing strategy for containing this virus.

Other than the one family member being very sick for two weeks and scaring us all to death, life on the farm continues pretty much the same as always. We worked all day yesterday and never left the homestead. Normal day. I guess you need endurance for even that sometimes, but I thought it was a pretty good day.

Learning overload

Chapter 266

Daniel Gilbert quipped that “human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished” From Brain Pickings

We are definitely works in progress and we definitely are not finished being developed and yes, unfortunately most of think we are closer to finished than we are in actuality. It seems to get worse as we get older. Ok, maybe its the worst in the teenage years, but you get what I mean. Everything is worse in the teenage years.

It seems to be very difficult for many to admit that they need coaching or help or a teacher or development, or that they even still have progress to make in their lives. This astounds me, because my experience is just the opposite, the older I get the more I have to learn. In fact my learning curve has never been higher. One of my secret fears is that I will get overwhelmed with my learning curve! It is seriously that high. I am starting to learn a whole new industry - antique car restoration. In the last eight months I have taken an ancient old rusty, spider web covered engine block that hasn’t run in decades and rebuilt it to a sweet purring kitten! I have taken a old ancient piece of metal that used to be a truck, and am currently cutting, welding, braising, sanding, bending, replacing, painting, priming, and rebuilding it into a truck again. I am learning how to do all these tasks from pretty much zero. My dad is a pretty good teacher even at 79 years old. But all this learning! This is why I have a fear of learning overwhelm . . . 

And why I have never had more fun in my life.

And why you should try and fail at something today.

Virtuous activities??

Chapter 265

Happiness does not consist in pastimes and amusements but in virtuous activities." ~ Aristotle

Not many Westerner’s are convinced of this. The WWS - the world wide shutdown - has revealed how vapid we are and shallow we are in our daily activities. While we cage the complaints, as worry about the workers, most locals really mean that what matters today is how inconvenienced I am today. My restaurant is closed, my sport’s team is not playing, my church gathering is not happening, my club is not meeting, my exercise class has been closed down, etc, etc.

But what is virtuous activity? Hahaha! I think most of the folks around here would list the above paragraph’s activities as virtuous! Seriously! Because what you consider virtuous will be a reflection of your values. If your primary values are laziness and amusement, then you want the quickest everything with the least possible effort - whether that is to laugh or eat or get paid - the quickest possible with the least effort. We call it efficiency to make it sound better. Or the use of labor saving devices, or some other catchy tune like that, to make it sound better, more . . . virtuous.

As I sit here thinking about this, there are 100 different paths we could mentally travel, but for the purposes of today, let’s define “virtuous activities” as those actions which benefit someone other than me. I think that will contain it nicely, give it substance and refuse to let me self-righteously define everything I do as virtuous. So that forces another moment or two to think about what I do for others, and that is fairly easy to identify since there is so little I do for others. Giving “virtuous activities” that power of definition, makes it clear that most of what I do benefits and please me, not others.

I have to keep my eye on this one in my life.

It’s time to start a business

Chapter 264

One of the most powerful things you can do is build a useful business. An enterprise of value, doing work of substance, filling a need and finding independence. - Seth

This has so many good pieces to it. And some times it isn’t even a business, it can be a non-profit and do many of these things. But just do it, whichever path you want. I went down the non-profit path because that fit my business model better than a standard LLC or C corp or INC. Don’t get lost in the mechanics so much upfront, there is time to figure that out as you go, the urgent and powerful part is to get started and get some forward momentum.

Wait, isn’t there a worldwide lockdown going on, starting a business would be crazy, you think. Not if you focus on that “doing work of substance, filling a need” part of the quote above. Do you think face mask companies are struggling right now?? No way! Do you think surgical masks or disposable glove companies are laying off employees? No way!! Delivery and logistic companies having a difficult go of it?? No way!! There are businesses that are struggling desperately in these times for sure, travel, hotels and restaurants especially (and the oil business surprisingly!), but there are businesses that are thriving in these difficult days as well, the ones filling a need, and providing a value.

The unexpected part of this was finding a completely unexpected career path. I had no idea at all that my NGO/business would lead me to the places and the people and work that I have here in my late 50’s. I had no idea my life could be so rich! I had no idea I could affect so many people in such difficult situations.

Maybe you should give it a go too!

Finally heard it run!

Chapter 263

We finally heard it run. Finally being the key word here because we have been working on this project since September 7th last year when I wrangled a 1966 289 engine block out of my dad and talked him into rebuilding it with me. And yesterday, over seven months later, we heard it run. And it didn’t just run, it fired up on the very first try, the very first turn of the starter!!

It was a very satisfying moment. When hundreds of hours of work and thousands of parts come together perfectly and run for the first time in over 30 years, it was very satisfying. Resurrecting old stuff like this is a special kind of work, and a dying art form in the hot rod world. This is one of many reasons I wanted to do this project with my dad. He has all this knowledge in his head and there is no real and meaningful way to pass this kind of knowledge on to the next generations.

I can easily admit that I need to do this breakdown and rebuilding at least another 5-10 times minimum before I will soak up part of the knowledge that my dad has spent a lifetime collecting. He will be 80 years old in 8 months. I need to take advantage of all the projects he is able and willing to participate in and learn all that I can along the way. The number one lesson learned so far, is how little I know and how much there is to learn!

I have a doctorate and my dad has a 10th grade education but he knows way more than I ever will.

This is how you live - ready to learn!

A fact of life

Chapter 261

More resilience

Resilience isn’t just a positive path through adversity, it is also a path to grow through your trauma. “Trauma, obstacles and adversity are not only a fact of life, they’re how people grow stronger.” - LaRae Quy

Notice the “fact of life” part. You and I aren’t going to get a pass on this one. These things happen to everyone and in every life. Resilience is a choice you can make on how to approach these negative experiences in your life. In fact some people argue that these difficult points in life are only trauma, obstacles and adversity, IF you and I allow our perspective to decide that they are trauma obstacles and adversity. 

I have a deep respect for those people who can make the decision and have the perspective that one event does not define them forever. When I was a pastor, those who had experienced abuse or violence, and refused to permit that experience to make them into a permanent victim, gained my awe. This is not easy. This is not a simple process. But it is resilience. These people are consistently stronger, than those who permit these very difficult things to cripple them. These are difficult things, and most people experience difficult things along the path of their life, and we all have a choice in how we see these events. Perspective is a key part for resilient people.

If you can manage the perspective piece, then you will grow stronger through these difficult events in your life. They will not crush you, they will build you. They will not overwhelm you with fear, they will give you power to move forward with a life you have chosen. 

the antidote to adversity

Chapter 260

Resilience, defined as the ability to adapt in a positive way in the presence of adversity ...

Resilience as defined here, is more needed and necessary than ever before. While the global pandemic hasn’t really raised the death rates around the world yet, it has stopped much of the commerce that makes up the Western life, and that is what is causing most of the stress on our local communities. This is where resilience will come into play or not. Don’t get me wrong, the additional deaths are causing fear, but the antidote to fear is different than the antidote to adversity. 

Resilience is not the lack fear or trepidation, nor the obliviousness or cluelessness that some Polly-Anna’s seem to have in abundance. Resilience isn’t just the ability to grind your teeth and outlast every negative even that comes into your universe (see Stubbornness or maybe Persistence). No resilience is a verb in the manner we are addressing it here today.

It calls for action. Actions that counter the adversity in some fashion. Actions that move you toward a different future than you were aiming toward before the adversity came along perhaps, but still moving forward. Taking this action changes everything, even if it fails to reach its objective. It changes you and me in the sense that we are immutable, refusing to quit and let adversity rob us of something we have been striving for and working toward. It changes the situation, even if it fails, because new factors and new energy have been applied to the adversity. It will change something, it alters the adversity in some manner.

This is positive adaptation.

This is resilience.

You can accomplish anything with this attitude.

What it is … and what it is not

Chapter 259

“ . . . corporate refugees,” looking for connection and meaning. - Perdue

This is suggested as the reason that most white collar workers, leave the organizations and big corporations that they work for, that they are “escaping” the lack of connection and meaning that they have failed to find in their well-paying jobs. Or perhaps rather, that their well paying jobs have failed to deliver? Nope, on second and third thought, connection and meaning has to lie solely on the shoulders of the employee who took the job, unless you took a job that was described as high connection and very meaningful. Most don’t get those job descriptions.

As I argued recently, imbuing work with these religious symbols and expectations is a failed expedition even before it leaves the train station, simply because in most cases, it can’t be more than it is, no matter how badly we may wish otherwise. For the vast majority of the time, work is just. . . . work. Occasionally it even pays! You get financial renumeration in exchange for your efforts or time or expertise or for following instructions decided by someone other than you. But this is not enough for most people I talk to, they want more.

And so they seek to escape to some perceived emotional utopia of compensation, where they do precisely what they want, with people they like and want to hang out with, and get paid handsomely while changing the world in some sort of magical manner. I hear this narrative on a regular basis. And if you think this is going to happen to you, then I also have a whole herd of unicorns I can sell you. Here is the real deal . . .

Do the hard work.

Make/create something valuable.

Be content.

Be that person

Chapter 258

“Anyone with any degree of mental toughness ought to be able to exist without the things they like most for a few months at least,” Georgia O’Keeffe

Now in the COVID-19 crisis, we are finding out that lots of people are really struggling with this one. They are finding out that they can’t manage well at all in a world where restaurants, hotels, and bars are closed without sports! All first world problems I promise you. And then their jobs changed, some lost their jobs, others moved work home with their kids who are off from school now too. And this just keeps adding up for most folks, and on top of that, we had tornadoes come through on Easter Sunday and then were reminded  what its like to not have electricity for hours (some people for days) compounding the existing challenges.

People just want things to go back to the way that they were pre-coronoavirus, but things never will. Maybe some of it will come back, but much of the things we (evidently) treasured are irrevocably gone. My current neighbors here in Georgia responded to this stress by buying more ammunition for their guns?? A run on ammo? Seriously? 

That does not sound like a degree of mental toughness to me. That response does not evoke images of grit or resilience, but rather of fear and anger. This is what is most disappointing during this entire worldwide event, other than the deaths - that people are not responding with compassion, generosity, grit, can-do-ism, that wonderful independent spirit that is the history of this country, but rather fear and more fear and anger and blame and helplessness.

Which world do you want to live in?

Be that person.