Simplicity versus clutter

# Chapter 15

Its a busy cluttered complex unsettling uncertain world that we live in and we need simplicity more than ever. Simplicity to have clarity and insight into what can be done and what needs to be done and how to go about doing it in a way that brings life to everyone, and not more discord and confusion and stress. Simplicity is not being simple or a lack of depth, but rather an uncomplicated undemanding untying of the difficult complex pieces of life so that we can navigate them better and with outstanding results that don’t cost us our souls in the process. It is the uncluttering of our work space and minds and desks so that we can see clearly what needs to be accomplished next. It is the screening and containment of the blaring distractions of social media and relationships and emails that will derail your success.

Simplicity sets your focus and attention free from all the bonds of the modern environment and drastically improves your chance of getting the important rather than the urgent completed. Simplicity is a way to move through life unhurried and unrestrained by the distractions and attention grabbing noise of the world. Simplicity is a system to protect the most important asset - you! Just making your bed each morning and clearing your desk each afternoon is a great start because simplicity is order if nothing else. Clutter gets in the way of everything and no one can reach their potential in a life filled with clutter, tripping over stuff, piles of material stacked everywhere, stacks of old files, every spare flat surface covered with stuff and no place to work and no place to eat and no place to relax = anti-simple.

Take care of those things, create the systems you need to not return to the same place three weeks later, and enjoy your simplicity.

Contentment versus happiness

# Chapter 14

Remember from yesterday, they were all contributors and that is the value they provided and why we remember them on purpose. They were driven by discovery and curiosity and the greater good. And ok, perhaps fame and wealth too, but unlike the in the modern era none of them were driven by the pursuit of happiness, no matter what the Declaration of Independence claims. I can say that with a straight face because no one can deny that Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness in the Declaration of Independence meant that only for white people. No people of color nor the native Americans from whom we stole this country were included in that ideal. I don’t mean this to be a history lesson in any fashion but rather that the pursuit of happiness seems to be a uniquely individualistic self-centered endeavor and that none of the celebrated people who brought great value to the world, were focused on pursuing happiness. That is far too small an idea to generate much excitement in a person who aims to change the world!

Instead I would venture to say that they experienced a great deal of contentment in what they invented and produce and brought to the world. Contentment is far superior to happiness, and in fact many would argue that if you pursue happiness you are driving away contentment. Contentment is found in decisions, actions, choices, commitments, accomplishments, productiveness and deep relationships. Happiness is excitement and hype and energy and adrenaline and dopamine and good fortune. Yes I am a reductionist at the moment, but you perfectly follow my understanding here. Contentment is producing something that makes everyone’s life better, happiness is about me. Chose.

What we give the world

# Chapter 13

What are we worth to the world, what value do we bring to the collective whole? It seems that far too little of the time we think about this, focusing instead on what we get, rather than what we give. But no one is remembered posthumously for what they got, only for what they gave the world. Ok ok yes lots of temporarily famous people are admired for what they got, whether that is a beautiful body or a golden voice or infinite riches, but none of them will be remembered long. When I was a kid my parents scrimped and saved for a set of World Book Encyclopedias, so that we could have a small reference possibility at home. I read them all!

Still not certain if that is a testament to my hungry little mind or a reflection of how boring the farm was, but read them I did. And you know what? There were no cultural icons listed in there, there were no rich people listed there, and there were no beauty kings or queens listed there. Instead there were endless pages of people listed because of what they gave, what they gave our country or their people or the world or to science advances, or how they changed the world they lived in. The beautiful paintings, the magnificent sculptures (why did no one want to be a sculpturer when I was growing up?) insightful writings and books, inventions and medicine and transportation and discoveries - these artists and inventors and scientists were the people most admired in my books. In every single case it was about what they contributed, not what they got.

Dreams

# Chapter 12

What are you dreaming about? What is driving the tide of want in you? What desires are strong enough within your heart that you willingly change your course of actions and decisions? What possibilities resonate in you and make you think about a different way to live? What would be different if your dreams started to become reality? What wonderful change in the world would result from your dreams? Why this dream? What does it solve, what does it alter in the lives of your family and others?

Of course most of us have more than one dream. My neighbor dreams about beer and the weekends, I am dreaming about being a completely functioning biped! About both knees working properly! So dreams can be small and selfish, but they can also be huge and astonishing. So while indeed I am dreaming about perfect gait mechanics, I am also much more intensely dreaming about a world where there are no slaves, where people are free to choose their destinies and live wild and abundantly. I am dreaming about a world where all children are well fed and having loving environments in which to grow up and develop. A world where their dreams are more possible than ever. I am dreaming of a world where leaders choose what is best for the company balanced by what is best for the world we all share. I am dreaming of a world where advancement is available to all and where we are judged by our outcomes and efforts not our social class or skin tone or gender. I am dreaming of life that is freely chosen and embraced by the ones living it. I am dreaming of a world where everyone has an opportunity to choose Christ. This is the world I want my grandchildren to have.

Time to get to it.

The three T’s

# Chapter 11

You have time talent and treasure and you can change the world with those gifts and those possibilities. You don’t have to have my time or talents or treasures to change the world, you already have all you need to make a huge difference. Now you have to decide to do it and then spring into action. Its how vaccines are discovered, and science is advanced, and slaves are rescued, leaders developed, organizations built, mines are made safe, bandits caught, wells dug, disease irradicated, surgeries accomplished, orphans cared for, group homes are built for the handicapped, food is distributed evenly, disasters are address, fires are fought, adoptions are completed, encouragement is given, lessons are taught, schools are supported, bridges are built, and a million other great possibilities come to life when you share your time talent and treasures.

You can’t take anything with you when you leave this world, spend it all and change all that you can!

Gait mechanics

# Chapter 10

Gait mechanics are the most crucial thing you never noticed until you do and then boom! Trust me you should be so pleased if you are ignorant of gait mechanics because that means your limbs are working in a generally coordinated fashion that is balanced and functional. But if you are injured or using crutches or a cane or walking with a limp, or if one leg tends to buckle or not be able to bear as much load as the other leg, all these things and more will alter your gait mechanics and then the real pain begins. These small or large alterations in your normal walking motion demand that other parts of your limbs compensate and other muscles bear the load and other bones bear the pressure and they will have their own pains as they protest this load shift! You think its just a little limp you got going there, wait until all the other body parts start complaining about your changed gait mechanics and you will understand that you have fundamentally altered how you move.

This applies to more than just gait mechanics of course, it applies to our spiritual experience, our relationships, our finances, our work, our passions and goals. Sudden changes upset the equilibrium and balance that your life systems have in place, like your gait mechanics when you blow out your knee and suddenly you are essentially one legged instead of two legged. Of course the resilience of your life systems vary from system to system, and how much safety net you have built into those systems. But your physical body generally does not have a back-up strategy or plan. If you break it, it is broken period.

Be thankful today if your gait mechanics are not on your radar at all and if your life systems are all healthy and getting stronger.

Fear

# Chapter 9

Fears and tears. Most of the time we think of fear as the boogy-man kind of fear, where we are scared of some type of monster or animal or the dark and our first response is to run away (ok and some strange people might want to fight), to get to some safe place and not be afraid any longer. This adrenaline rush is not pleasant nor generally sought after. And then there is the York Fair Carnival variant of this experience, where you place yourself in danger on purpose and ride a rollercoaster or bungee jump or some other such insanity to get a similar adrenaline rush for the thrill of it. These people keep amusement parks in business.

But there is a whole other category of fear that is very adult, fear of failing, fear of trying, fear of missing out, fear of falling short, fear of . . . there really are quite a lot of them and I am only touching on the failing-trying-missing-out spectrum. Because I am committed to you changing the world and since I have been in that business a very long time, I can assure you that it is crawling with fearful experiences and difficulties, and the faint of heart rarely make a ripple in this turbulent pond of terrible situations. Tears are a common place event in this frightful world of slavery, trafficking, abuse, orphanages and dozen other worlds of darkness and hopelessness. Those caught in these worlds already shed tears of shame and pain, but if you and I don’t conquer our fears, even if it brings us to tears, then more will suffer.

It is astonishingly difficult to help people take the step of action here. Of everyone who is human feels it, but to take action is a quantum leap of difficulty. Can you overcome your fear?

Comfort zones

# Chapter 8

Coasting and comfort zones. Somewhere we have gotten the idea, that we want to live in this space, in this zone. This reminds me of my lazy hazy days in the 70’s when life was mostly about doing as little as possible. Perhaps the “ideal life” needle got stuck there, or perhaps those days were a great deal more fun and satisfying than my memories can bring up and subconsciously my brain has decided those were the “Happy Days” of my life and wants me to return there? I don’t know where coasting and comfort zone desires come from, likely just plain old laziness on my part, but I do know for certain that they aren’t nearly as satisfying as advertised.

The challenging and the difficult and the amazing and the world changing and thought-provoking and the demanding and the strenuous and the just plain hard stuff in life and work can bring a sense of accomplishment that is way way more pleasing than coasting and comfort zones can ever be. Having said that, I want to become so accomplished that the hardest things appear and seem easy to me. This is not a move toward coasting and comfort zones, but rather a move toward big competence and astonishing skills. Notice the words “appear” and “seem” in the previous sentence. Yet there is nothing negative about making the complex simple, and deconstructing the complicated and making it easier. In fact those two practices are extremely valuable and difficult in their own rights.

We all need to move outside our comfort zones to really feel alive. Why not today? And then tomorrow? And then the next day?

Decisions versus conditions

# Chapter 7

Decisions and conditions. We can choose. And we often do. In fact many might argue that the conditions that you find yourself in today are a result of the decisions you have made along the way and that is clearly true to a certain point. Your weight is result of your eating decisions and your fitness is a result of your exercise decisions. But a condition is more a situation than a result. Conditions are the state or order of something and while they may change according to results of your decisions, there is a less direct path here. And conditions can be imposed or constructed outside of any decisions that you personally make. You hire on for a new job and the working conditions you find on your first day can not in any fashion be attributed to your actions or decisions. Or if you are a refugee, the condition or situation you find yourself in, is likely the result of other’s decisions.

Yet we do make many decisions and those decisions always affect our condition for good or ill, and we often make those decisions purely for the affect they will have on our condition. But that is the path of less, instead we should make our decisions based on our goals and the direction we want to move our lives. Improving our condition is a secondary smaller benefit if it happens at all. I would argue that your condition is distracting you from making the decisions that you will be most pleased with in the future. Conditions are the context in which we make decisions, but the decisions are ours. Own them!

Falling through the cracks

# Chapter 6

We are capable of so much more and we very well may have to step up and do it. Instead of complaining about how much falls through the cracks, and it does for all of us, and you can actually stop most of the crack droppings by filling in, by being precise, by getting out of our lounge chair and taking action. It seems to be that last one that grates on us the most. There are few things that I want to get out of my comfort chair for at the end of the day. But its the end of the day for everyone and things will go at a less than ideal pace if you don’t move and take care of some of these matters yourself.

I know that you think the best way for everyone to pull their own weight is for you to not step in and help or do it for them, but that is only true to a point and with certain things. When it comes to many other matters in life, you can pull more weight without creating an imbalance and make sure that important things get done. Either that, or you need to start deciding that these things are not really that important. Are there other choices? Chances are that they too will require you to step up your contribution. The days where you sit around and get served are reserved for the restaurant and hotel experiences. Life doesn’t work that way for any of us. So stop complaining. Get moving.

Is this the new normal that you want?

# Chapter 5

This will be your new normal unless you can find a way to break out of this. These limitations will be what you have for the rest of your life unless you intervene and change the course of this trip, this life you are living, and make it something else. You and you alone must make this decision, although you will likely need lots of help along the way to get to where you decided you want to go if it is a challenging or difficult destination to reach. Before you make up your mind that this is too much work or that you are too exhausted to move forward in any direction or that you simply hurt too much to focus on any change at all, remember that if you don’t, this will be your new and forever normal. I don’t know about you, but I am more certain that I don’t want this to be my new normal, than I am about almost anything in the universe. Something had got to give!

But there are no guarantees and no certainties down this path, I know I know we all want things to return to the place they were in some treasured memory of the past, but that is not likely either. The factors that brought you to where you are, will play an inordinate role in defining what you can and can’t recover from and move toward, but don’t give this fact too much power. Dream and then decide and then stick to your decision! But if you are like me, you may have to give up your Nutella if you want to reach these other goals.

What to do when you are frustrated

# Chapter 4

Frustrations can derail you completely. There is a whole scale to frustration. While I hate to inform you that yours and mine are actually pretty low on the world wide scale of frustrations, they are still very very frustrating to us. I am feeling that this morning and it will ruin the entire day if I let it run rampant and take over. Break the frustration loop early as possible. And if it proves not to be possible to break the loop, then spend the day alone and minimize the relational damage you will cause otherwise.

So how to break the loop. Thinking is the only way I know how to break the loop, because the individual causes of your frustration would take volumes to answer. So you are frustrated that someone is asking you pointless or obvious questions and instead of allowing frustration to run away and wreck something, you need to think. Think of the reasons why this person is asking obvious questions? They make sense to them, so there is some sort of rationale at play somewhere here. You are frustrated that all your plans got interrupted for the next 10 days. So instead of breaking dishes in your frustration, think about the bigger picture - sure this is uber frustrating at the moment, but will it matter a year from now, 10 years from now? So you are frustrated and in pain from a recent injury that wrecked all your plans for the next 10 days. Instead of taking that pain and frustration out on everyone around you, spend more time alone and more time thinking about how grateful you can be - that the injury is not far worse, that you are not in the hospital, that you likely can heal up eventually from this injury, etc etc.

Letting your frustrations run wild is injuring your life and is irresponsible. Rein in this damaging animal of your soul and find more peace.

Facing? Changes

# Chapter 3

This is a day of changes around here. Perhaps you are facing something similar. Even the way that we say that phrase makes it sound negative to me, “facing something” paints the picture of facing the oncoming whatever with stalwart steadfastness stoniness. So we need new language here . . . perhaps you are not facing something similar, instead you are engaging something similar? You are getting to have something similar? The thesaurus is useless here, but perhaps you are surviving, enjoying, drowning, celebrating, sinking or dancing with something similar? This is a laughable conversation in one sense, but it is a critical conversation in another sense, that our posture toward life is under scrutiny in this discussion. How we are thinking about our lives, how we approach our days, how we respond to all the things that we are . . . facing. Ok I capitulated and used the culturally common word again. But you get it.

What is your posture to what is coming your way? This is definitely something to be thinking about before it happens, at least you will get the chance to choose your posture. How we choose to face these things are largely what determines the quality of our daily experiences. And this will affect not only the issue at hand but also the way you prepare for it (before) and how you view it after it is all past (after). In other words this is a proactive way to live rather than a reactive way to live. This is the way to choose you how you respond to what life brings your way. Honestly this is the only choice you get often.

So get to it

# Chapter 2

Getting to it. There is work to be done, ideas to be considered, thinking to be shaped, possibilities to be discovered, so get to it. There are lessons to be learned, classes to be taught, books to be written, so get to it. There is growing and developing to be done, seeds to be sown, produce to pick and harvest, so get to it. There are obstacles to defeat, challenges to be overcome, and mountains to climb, so get to it. There are people to help, people to develop, people to enable, so get to it. These are the days of lives and this is the living we are given to do, so get to it.

This rarely happens in the context of ease and leisure, most of us have plenty of discomfort or pain or both to keep us on the edge of our seats, debating whether or not to take pain meds it hurts so badly to dull the sharpest edges. But this too can be your office. Where you marshal pain and challenges to be, at least partially, fuel to take you to the next level or the next chapter. That’s right, use the pain. Let it be the fuel or the motivation to move forward, make progress. You are hurting right? I know I am. Then use it to be stronger, better, more.

This is not your usual morning productivity chat, this is the nitty gritty of your life, where you chose to make every challenge a stepping stone to one percent better. This is the hurt and pain that will drive you over the edge if you don’t harness them in some manner and make them your energy to change something. So get to it. You have work to do.

Difficulties are difficulties

# Chapter 1

What a terrible way to start a new year of thoughtful writing. I am not a nice person most of the time, I am especially not a nice person when I have less than six hours of sleep! I am not a social person, and I am especially not social when I am in pain and don’t want to do the things that must be done today. Far too many of you reading this are thinking, “hey man, you are describing my every morning!” and my heart sinks that you face this daily and yet I thank you in the sense that your pain helps put mine into perspective and its proper place in my day. It won’t help my snarliness very much today, snapping everyone’s head off because I am not at my best, I already feel sorry for my wife.

So the objective reality of these events and pains and difficulties is that number one, my experience is a fairly normative experience. Everyone goes through days and months where things are difficult. Yes that difficulty scales and is not the same for any two people but difficulties are difficulties at the end of the day. Two is that I am not required to make everyone else feel my pain and difficulties. Three is that I can still think, albeit through a fog, but I have possibilities that I can use to explore and create and produce and do anything other than sit here and moan and groan. Yes moaning and groaning seems to help you get through the day at some visceral level, but that is not true, whining even when warranted never helps anything. So as Bernie says, put your ass in the chair and do the work. This is assuming that you are not a lumberjack or some other kind of uber physical worker. My work is thinking and idea work, so get to it.

Thus I am, getting to it as you can read.

Digging in deeper

# Chapter 350

Last chapter for book two. Another year has come and gone as my brothers birthday marks the beginning and end of these books. It had been a lesson in humility as this daily writing practice often fell into a diary-like prose, far far more than a leadership or thought-filled style that would capture the interest of any one other than immediate family members, and even that probably posthumously. No the powerful writer has to concentrate through the deepest distractions, the almost relentless noise, the most intrusive environments to produce anything of lasting value. Because that is the world we live in today. Quiet peaceful spaces in each day occur for almost no one. One has to make such a space to think and write inside one’s head. I fail regularly at this challenge and the writing proves it.

The powerful writer also doesn’t get locked into the specifics of a certain day nor the politics nor the weather. Instead this kind of writer is engaging ideas and processes and knowledge that will defy time, and be engaging to read on any and every day. It won’t matter when the material is published because the content will be timeless. Writing of such a level will depend far less on my typing speed and far more on my thinking ability. This is the true skill that needs honing and working and practice that we become people who think deeply and write succinctly and with a purpose that moves others to join in and work and think alongside of us.

So year two, day 700 plus of doing this, has once again largely taught me what I lack and shown me the chasm between what I aspire to do and what I actually accomplish. Time to dig in deeper.

Celebrations!

# Chapter 349

Celebrate every victory and never allow a good change to go unnoticed. It takes too much energy and effort to fight struggle and win at all, you don’t want to let these positives go uncelebrated and without due note of the effort or change or redirection that has taken place. The application of this is apparent for the office and for teams of competition, but less obvious for home and emotions. Let me give you an example.

I have been in a strong downward cycle emotionally because of my blown knee, the constant pain, the lack of healing, etc etc. My youngest daughter is a psychotherapist and she has been gently trying to pull me out of this cycle all weekend. She would have done this regardless, but she feels extra on this one, because I was playing racketball with her when I injured this knee. Thus she has been suggesting outings and the like for days, all of which I flat out said I was poor company and did not want to inflict myself on the family. On and on this continued, until she and her husband showed up with pizza for lunch yesterday and my youngest grandbaby.

You guessed it, turned a terrible day into a wonderful day. Don’t think it was the pizza but I am pretty sure it was Emma sleeping on my shoulder and hugging me. Celebration!

Choices

# Chapter 348

Today would have been my brothers 57th birthday. Today is the one year anniversary of the death of the man who lived in this house. These are sad dates and they make us stop and consider how things may have been different if these deaths had not happened prematurely. My nieces would likely have chosen very different paths than they have these five years my brother has been gone, and Brenda and I would be living on a different street in a different house if Gene had not died last year.

But those are just the concrete pieces. My brother and the previous owner of this house could have changed the world in so many beautiful ways had they lived longer and differently. They could have had a high impact on their granddaughters and the kids in the neighborhood. I know I have as I have had to stand in their steads these years, but Gene and brother could have done it so much better than I have. They could have helped in ways that I have not been able to, they would have impacted their worlds and circles of relationships in ways that I simply can not.

We never know but often wonder at what we might have been if we had made different choices about people places stuff relationships jobs postures attitudes health and so on. But as interesting a subject that is to think about it doesn’t matter nearly as much as the choices we did make about all these pieces listed above. Those choices and those decisions are our legacies and we are building them each and every day.

Deciding what we value

# Chapter 347

There are often sirens wailing in the background here because our home is located near the Ladder 19 company house. So it is no surprise that we heard the fire and ladder trucks when they pull out and fire up their sirens and flashers. What is surprising is how often we heard these sirens. I think we hear ladder 19 trucks and sirens more than all the emergency vehicles combined in our Eastern European home and that was a city of nearly one million people! The frequency of use in the USA versus Eastern Europe is very very noticeable and intriguing contrast.

What does that say about us as a people and a nation? Hahaha, that is far too philosophical a question for me to answer on my best day, much less this morning. But it does give us clues about about what we value. The mere fact of how frequently Ladder 19 is called out of the station says that we aren’t one bit hesitant to call out all possibly needed tools to any and every situation. (I am hearing them again right at this moment!) In other words we see these trucks and the people who operate them as far more versatile and flexible than how the Eastern Europeans utilize their fire trucks. And people here are clearly far more willing to use their tax contributions for these protections - and less interested in having their streets repaired - and generally don’t complain about taxes. Whereas my experience in Eastern Europe clearly shows a pattern of paying no taxes and getting no services. Decide what you value.

Attention competition

# Chapter 346

I almost fell down the rabbit hole a few minutes ago instead of writing this important document! It is so easy to do. I have been trying to get a key software program to sync up properly these last few days as we have a long travel trip coming up. So I just wanted to check one tiny thing before writing this, just make sure one small process was working in the background before starting this ground breaking epic, when I noticed that I am not getting credit for the appropriate level of this software program that I have purchased - they have me listed as a personal account when in fact I have paid for a business account! And that led to another thing which led me to yet another setting and . . . you get the picture.

Just a small distraction or a small segue into a multitasking wish or a notification or a text message or a million other attention-competing intrusions and bang, you are off track of your systems and productivity patterns that have brought you to the place you are today. Its the ones that “this will only take 10 seconds to fix” that are my doom and temptations, that I find almost impossible to resist but you may likely have others that are your Turkish Delight. The temptation and distraction is not the point here, getting back on track is the point here. What do you have in place to point you back to those important priorities, not the urgent ones, but the daily get it done important ones? You can do this, you can choose the important over the urgent and you will win!