Category Archives: American Culture

Bury Your Head or Go Insane? Dealing with the Flood of News & Social Media

“I wonder if being sane means disregarding the chaos that is life, pretending only an infinitesimal segment of it is reality.” –Rabih Alameddine, Koolaids: The Art of War 

Hello friend,

I lost my temper on social media this week. I feel ashamed of it now as I think of the moment. Not ashamed of what I said—in fact, I wish I had said more to make my point more clear—but rather, ashamed that I let what is happening on the news and in social media cause me to boil over in rage.

I am a mellow, happy guy and have a habit of very deliberate processing with my journal that allows me to deliver measured, thoughtful responses to most issues that arise in my day. I don’t fly off the handle. My opinions may ruffle feathers, but not usually my delivery. Because I don’t lose my temper. I don’t write angry. Until Tuesday….

Probably like you, I followed the big story of last weekend—the ban on refugees and travel restrictions from certain Muslim-majority countries and its subsequent protests—on the news and through social media. The nature of the ban, as well as the criteria for selection of the nations involved in it, was deeply disturbing to me and only the latest in a long line of red flags being raised in my conscience regarding the new administration. I admit to being highly sensitive to the reputation of America internationally being dragged into the mud, and also when I feel the government does things that increase the gap between the ideals that America supposedly represents and the reality we are representing in practice. So, I was already edgy going into the new week.

After the election, I had mostly removed myself from social media until around Christmas. And though I kept tabs on the news, it was a much-needed break from the idea circus that is Facebook and the like. After the holidays, I slowly inched back onto my apps and, not surprisingly, became progressively re-addicted. I use social media as much for news as to see what my people are thinking about and doing. If I watch CNN on television or listen to NPR on the radio, then I subscribe to them on social media. So, I get a mix of real news and then my friends’ interpretation and reaction to the news (mixed in with some fun photos of their kids and their food, and an occasional cat video).

If you have been alive with your head above ground these last couple of weeks, you probably know that all is not running so smoothly in America. If you only watched reputable news channels and didn’t even know what “social media” meant, you would know that. Likewise, if you were a social media nut but didn’t care a thing about “serious” news outlets, you would also be aware of the tension that currently defines us at this point. And if, like me, you have both regular news and social media, well, you are swimming in it!

By Tuesday night, I definitely needed some goggles and a snorkel.

I had watched in horror as the Executive Orders came down. I heard the stories of people unable to return to their jobs and families here in America after visiting relatives in banned countries. I thought of the many Somali families in my own community—classmates of my children—and how they would be affected. I thought of the refugee family that my church is sponsoring—we had their apartment all set up with furniture and supplies—who was supposed to arrive this week from Somalia that is now stuck in Kenya (the mother has been in the refugee camp there for twenty years, her children never knowing any other place). That part was particularly heartbreaking.

Meanwhile, of course, I wondered about the fate of our schools as the Senate seemed about to confirm someone who seemed wholly incompetent to be in charge of them; and about the future of free speech in America as even the most neutral, even-handed news outlets are being warned and belittled by the administration; and about the environment and climate change scientists as they come under attack; and about whether our next Attorney General would actually stand on the side of the law and the Constitution; and on and on and on. There was no shortage of stories, no shortage of crises.

In the midst of all of the news and reactions Tuesday evening, as my blood pressure seemed to rise with every post, I read one from a childhood acquaintance, a long rant (her word) about how President Obama had just done this same ban on Cubans two weeks ago, and where was the liberal media then, and angrily on and on. This is when I should have checked myself, turned off all electronics for the day, and taken some deep breaths. But no. I let it make my blood boil, the effects of too much time in front of the screen taking hold. Even though her whole premise was based on a falsehood, making the argument completely unsound, I couldn’t just laugh it off. I was on the very edge of writing a reply to her and setting her straight, but I gathered my wits just enough to recognize that with some people, there is just no talking sense into them (another lesson from my short time on Facebook).

And just as I began to think I had done well in resisting a fight, I scrolled down and hit the one that sent me over the edge. It was from someone I wasn’t even sure I knew, but I think she was in my brother’s class in school. Anyway, it was a meme—of course it was a meme, it is always a meme—with a picture of the plane hitting the World Trade Center on September 11, saying something like “For all of you whining about the ban on Muslims, a little reminder for you.” I almost screamed. I was absolutely livid! I could not let it go. So, against the better judgment I had just applauded myself for a moment earlier, I clicked on the “Write a comment…” space. I typed the first thing that came out of my head (after the swearing, I mean): “Are you serious, Sheila? Perhaps we should post a picture of the KKK performing a lynching and call for a ban of all Christians.” Return. That was it.

As I sat there fuming, I thought of other things I wanted to say to her, such as “Interestingly, none of the nineteen hijackers on September 11 were from the seven countries banned by the President. They were from four other countries, all of which the President has business ties to.” And I almost hit the Comment box again, but thankfully, I found my senses again. But I didn’t let go of my outrage. I was still stewing about it late that night, tossing in my bed as I tried to sleep.

I knew it wasn’t just this one stupid meme that was tormenting me. It was all of it: the Executive Orders, the incompetence, the acrimony on both sides of the political aisle, the nonsensical responses on Facebook and Twitter, the fear that my friends feel and that I feel for them, the embarrassment on behalf of my country, the shame that I am not doing more to speak up and resist, and so much more.

I confessed my anger and my torment to my wife the next morning. I told her I was torn. On the one hand, I liked my several weeks away from social media and just a small but sufficient amount of regular news on a neutral news app. I was less stressed, riding the “Ignorance is bliss” theory. It made me think of a conservative friend of mine, whom I had spoken to just after the election and who knew I was bummed about it. She said, “I don’t even watch the news about this stuff. But at least I’m happy!”

It is hard to argue with happy. On the other hand, I don’t just want to bury my head in the sand and pretend this isn’t happening around me. As uncomfortable as it is, I think it is necessary to wrestle with that discomfort and figure out my place in its midst.

I feel like the biggest danger to us is indifference. Not caring. Not speaking up to support what our cause or idea is (or worse, not caring enough to even have an opinion). Just quietly letting it happen to us. I think of my hero Martin Luther King as he was considering his greatest obstacles to progress, well aware that it was not the Ku Klux Klan or other extremists but rather the masses of polite but silent white people allowing the violence and oppression to continue. “History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”

I think that appalling silence comes more frequently when we bury our heads in the sand, allowing denial to rule. It is a pleasant denial, but I am seeing now that in our most divisive moments, that pleasant denial is mostly cowardice. That conclusion doesn’t sit well with me. I think again of Dr. King, who reminded us, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of controversy and challenge.” There is a slippery kind of comfort and convenience to tuning out the world in times like now. Just turning off the news and social media. It is so, so alluring. Tragically so.

But how much is enough? That is the question that is torturing me now. I am determined to maintain my composure, to not let myself get as livid as I was on Tuesday night after too many hours of accumulating news stories and social media opinions. But I want to know the truth about the world, too. I want all the facts. I know I will be outraged by some, and I think it is probably time that more of us were outraged and moved to action by events in our world. But under control! I am not going to lose my temper. I am going to channel it the right way. But not in denial!

ARGH!!! This is hard! What is the right balance of intake versus processing, of reality versus sanity? That was my question to my wife.

Her suggestion: “Just pick one time per day—I think morning is best—to do a quick look at social media. Then, if you still want a regular news show, listen to something neutral, like NPR. But nothing more. Quick and done! Otherwise, you are sucked in!” That seems wise.

I have been attempting to follow her advice the last few days, mostly successfully. I sometimes, out of sheer habit, unconsciously turn on my phone, open Facebook, and start thumbing through. But then I catch myself and turn it off. I am just trying to be more conscious about it, to give myself permission to look only at a certain time of day for only a certain number of minutes. It is hard to resist, but I can tell my spirit is getting stronger for it. Not in denial, either. Facing reality, but not swimming in the rot. It is a delicate balance that I will no doubt be wrestling with for all of my days to come.

How about you? How do you balance denial with peace and sanity in these tumultuous times? Open up your journal and examine your level of engagement. This goes for everyone on every side of the political spectrum, and even those completely off the political spectrum who are simply trying to decide how much news of any sort they want to take in. Let’s start with your current habits. What are your news sources? Do you watch your local news? Cable news? Do you use news apps or subscribe to news pages on social media? If so, do you tend to choose more neutral sources or ones that skew toward your particular side of the spectrum? Do you read a lot of the “news” things that your friends on social media share? How about the radio, like NPR? How much time do you spend with each on a daily basis? How much time do you spend on social media in general? For both news and social media stuff, do you try to regulate the amount of time you spend per day? Are you addicted? How healthy is your relationship with all of this stuff? Does it ever feel like it is going to drive you crazy? Do you get angry? Is your anger and frustration more from the news in general, like the political strife or violence that always seem to lead the headlines, or from particular things that your friends share, like memes or rants? Do you comment and engage people you disagree with, even if you know it won’t change their mind? Does that make you feel better or worse? Have you found the right balance for yourself with the amount of time and energy you can devote to this stuff and still feel authentic and at peace? Are you more on the “Burying My Head & Smiling” side or the “I’m So Engaged I’m Going Crazy” side? Leave me a reply and let me know: What is the right balance of news and sanity for you?

May Peace be always with you,

William

P.S. If today’s letter helped you take a fresh look at this and find some clarity, please share. Perhaps together we can find a way to be both sane and engaged. Cheers!

A Quiet Dinner With Friends: My Fantasy Guest List

“If you hang out with chickens, you’re going to cluck and if you hang out with eagles, you’re going to fly.” –Steve Maraboli

Hello friend,

You know that old thought experiment where you come up with four or five people from history whom you would want to have over for a dinner party? Everyone seems to start with Jesus, and then it can go in a few different directions. Some people choose other respected people they are “supposed to” pick—Abraham Lincoln, Mother Teresa, and the like—while other people add some evil to the mix with folks like Hitler or Charles Manson. Still others go with childhood heroes or sports legends like Neil Armstrong or Wilt Chamberlain.

In any case, it is usually a group of icons from other eras that end up gathered together around our hypothetical tables. In our attempt to gather the biggest names, this game usually involves little thought about how they would actually interact once they sat down. It is enough of a fantasy just to name the names. Thinking about it for a second, I would probably fill my guest list with Jesus, Buddha, Henry David Thoreau, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King. I could go on and on, of course, as I love history and would be on the edge of my seat listening to folks like Frederick Douglas, Susan B. Anthony, Merriweather Lewis, Harriet Tubman, and Sitting Bull, to name just a few.

Honestly, I get a little giddy just thinking about how much knowledge and wisdom I could soak up in a deep conversation with each of these individuals. I would love that! But really, I don’t have a clue how it would shake out to gather a handful of them together for a few hours over a meal. Not having much of a sense of their personalities, I am left unable to visualize the feel of the discourse. I mostly just think about wanting to talk to each individually.

So, I am changing the game! I want this dinner to suit my personality. A bigger group would work against my introversion and my desire for a genuine connection amongst the whole group. I would appreciate the intimacy more if there were only a few guests instead of, say, five (actually, I would prefer individual dinners with each person, but that’s not as fun for our game here). Let’s go with three plus me. I also want a pretty good sense of their personalities and confidence that they have social skills, because I want us to all enjoy the conversation and have things in common, like sports, a global awareness, and a desire to improve our world. With that, I am limiting it to people who are alive today and who I think would enjoy each other’s company, including me.

Okay, so: a few living humans who would make for a fun and fascinating evening of conversation. NOW it sounds like my kind of a dinner party!

I am starting with tennis champion Roger Federer. This guy just seems like a cool dude to me! For all of his athletic magnificence—he is widely considered the greatest player ever in his sport—he has a very charming class and grace about him (he has won the ATP’s Sportsmanship Award a record twelve times!). You always hear about how kind and thoughtful he is to everyone he comes into contact with. He and I both love the game of tennis and would therefore have an easy connection. Of course, he also hangs out with other international sports legends, which would no doubt provide for some scintillating stories. Another connection: he is also a Dad of young kids. I very much admire the enormous amount of charity work he does, including the millions of dollars that go to help disadvantaged children in Africa gain access to education. He just seems to be doing it all right. And he is grateful.  Roger, you are invited!

Next to Roger can sit Barack Obama. After this guy’s experiences of the last decade, I can hardly think of a more fascinating guest at my table. The stories he must have… But that is not the only reason to invite him. He seems like a genuinely cool guy to me, and grateful for his many blessings. I once saw a talk show segment with his wife, Michelle, as the guest, and the host asked what the most annoying thing about him was. She did an impression of him doing a slow, pause-filled explanation to his daughter of every aspect of some issue. It was hilarious, but it also points to what I would like about talking with him. He’s a thinker, and he seems to grasp that social issues are enormously complicated and can’t be fit into the little sound bites that our TV and Internet news outlets give us. Like my journal entries, I prefer my conversations to be a deep dive, so I would enjoy combing the intricacies of the world’s concerns with him. He also loves sports and has daughters a bit older than mine, so he could warn me and Roger of things to come.

Frankly, I am tempted to leave my little table at just the three of us—me, Roger, and Barack–as I have a hard time with who might make a comfortable fit (should we all be roughly similar in age?). Ideally, I could think of someone both worldly and philanthropic from the arts. However, I have been almost totally out of popular culture since I had kids, so I feel like I don’t know the personalities very well (though George Clooney, I think, would make any conversation enjoyable, and I would be interested to learn more about Leonardo DiCaprio’s world travels to study climate change; or perhaps Oliver Stone).

Dan Rather! Yes, the face and voice I have known since I was a kid would fill that last seat between me and Obama wonderfully! Though we were a Tom Brokaw/NBC family when I was growing up, I knew of Dan Rather and his storied career as a journalist. He was at Kennedy’s assassination and in Vietnam as a reporter, and obviously at all of the major global events as the anchor at CBS for a million years. So, he understands the world and our history. He left my radar until recent months, when I have been faithfully reading his commentary regarding politics and the necessity of tough, fair-minded journalism in our society. He is an incredibly thoughtful man, and he also seems very grateful for the voice and the platform he has been blessed with. And he seems like a fun guy to talk to, with such a wide-ranging experience, including being the parent of a daughter and a son, like me. I would like him at our table for his wisdom, his stories, and his heart.

What would I bring to the table? I hope that while being another voice sharing tales of travel and parenting, opinions on sports and global issues, and a passion for improvement with my comrades, I would also greet each guy’s unique perspective with intense curiosity and acceptance, as well as enough important questions and observations to connect us all together. That is what the evening is all about, after all: making a connection. Building a bond of humanity and common growth across a range of life experience. Oh yeah, and FUN! I think we would co-create some of that, too. This sounds like an enormously satisfying dinner to me!

How about you? What type of characters are making your guest list? Open up your journal and think about the kind of interaction you want to have with, and between, your special guests. What are your priorities? Do you just want to put three other amazing people in the room and see what happens, or do you want to pick and choose your commonalities and engineer it in a certain direction? If you have a theme or themes in mind, what are they? Do you want each character to have similar qualities, or do you think big differences would make it more interesting? How much would you like them to share things in common with you versus in common with each other? Would you prefer it to be all one gender, like my guy’s night? Do you imagine you will hold your own in the conversation and have good things to add? Would you approach this mentally more as a fan or as an equal? Okay, now write the list. Who is on there? Write about each one individually. Why do they make the list? What do they hold in common with the rest of the group? What unique perspectives can they bring? Which one do you expect to feel the closest bond with? Will one of you emerge naturally as the leader of your group? How serious will your conversation be? How much laughing will you do? What will you all take from the evening? Inspiration? Kinship? Empathy? A lighter heart? A greater sense of responsibility? Lifelong friendships? Even more to think about? Simple gratitude? It’s fun to think about! I am smiling as I write. I hope you will be, too. Leave me a reply and let me know: Who is at your fantasy dinner table?  

Soar with the eagles,

William

P.S. If you enjoyed this exercise, please share it with friends. I wish you happiness!

A Peaceful Transfer of Power: Ruminations on the New Presidency

“Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.” –Mark Twain

Hello friend,

It is Inauguration Weekend in Washington, DC. Amidst a wide array of celebrations and demonstrations, only one thing is certain: we have a new President. What comes next is anybody’s guess….

I think that the range of internal reactions to this event and this unique period in American history runs the gamut among our fellow citizens. We are emerging from the most unusual political campaign imaginable, but in some ways, we haven’t emerged much at all. Drama has continued unabated, on every conceivable topic. As with any drama, there are a million different ways to react to our current events, depending upon your personal history and the interests you have vested in the players on the stage.

I have seen jubilation, and I have seen devastation. I have seen relief, and I have seen dread. I have seen hope, and I have seen fear. I have seen smugness, and I have seen humility. I have seen eagerness, and I have seen panic. I have seen joy, and I have seen profound sadness. I have seen triumph, and I have seen abject loss.

Through all of those reactions I have witnessed while out in the world or inside my home–seeing them through the news or social media—I have sensed a unique undercurrent. It is almost indescribable. Maybe the best word I can come up with is UNCERTAINTY. It is not exactly in people’s words—and I mean people on all sides of the emotional and political spectrum–but in how they deliver them and how they are received. It is in people’s body language, in the structure of conversations and news reports.

There is a sense of wildness out there. The Wild, Wild West. There is the feeling that, even though it is not written anywhere, the old rules don’t seem to apply anymore. The term “post-truth world” has become popular in the press, and I think that is this feeling in the air. Like, “I think I will just say or do something untrue or illegal or outrageous, because something tells me I will get away with it now, though I never could before.” It just feels willy-nilly in the atmosphere to me, like we are at some strange portal in the Universe, and none of us knows if, when we take that next step, the regular laws of gravity and thermodynamics and such will still apply. It is as though a huge experiment is beginning, and some are starting with the attitude of “Let me see what I can get away with,” while others just want the rules to be posted, and still others are scared to death.

I know I am not explaining myself well here, but suffice it to say that I sense a really awkward vibe in the air. Uncertainty. As I said at the beginning, what comes next is anyone’s guess.

I, of course, have gone through my own process with the whole campaign, election, and the transition period, a process that is still evolving now as I write to you. 

I followed the Presidential campaigns with great interest from the very start (crazy that that was nearly two years ago!). I am very liberal but am fascinated by both major parties as well as a few minor ones, though I don’t belong to one. I assumed from the start that whomever the Republicans selected would win, especially as it seemed clear that an unpopular Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic contender. But when the Republicans made their selection, I thought the Democrats were back in it with a decent shot.

The end of the campaign and the election itself left me gutted. I am an optimist, and I have a perhaps-naïve faith in the goodness of people. Recent years have brought what seemed like so much social progress. After all of the ignorance, hate, and general smallness on display daily through the campaign, I did not want to believe that the millions of independent voters in this country could, in good conscience, step into the voting booth and, in effect, give an okay to those ideas and undo the momentum we had built toward open-mindedness and equal treatment. Of course, I was wrong, and painfully so.

I felt like I woke up to a different country after the election. It had nothing to do with which party won—I admittedly preferred the Democrat and Green Party candidates—but rather what the result said about what was inside so many more hearts than I wanted to believe.

After seeing the reactions on Facebook for a day or two and feeling worse, I stopped going on there for almost two months. It was too tempting to go down the road of defeatism and bitterness. I didn’t want to be swallowed up by that, because my world is too important to me, and I respect the gift of my own voice. I did not want to sully my spirit and be false to who I really am.

So, I laid low, retreated from the fray, and concentrated on other things. I peaked in on the news, of course, and followed things like Cabinet appointments and intelligence reports so that my head was not buried in the sand, but I allowed my heart some space to heal and prepare for this transfer of power and the uncertain years to come.

Where am I today? While I won’t pretend that I don’t still cringe at the Tweets, Cabinet hearings, and press conferences I see on my regular check of the news, and I won’t pretend I am not anxious about my loved ones’ sense of safety and belonging in my beloved country, I am doing my best to not let my energies be leached away from me in those directions.

Instead, I am focusing on how I can be a light and make a positive impact on my own little sphere of influence. I am not going to pretend I can just keep my eyes down and hope these four years pass as quickly as possible. I am not going to sit around and blame the President or the Congress for my lot in life and the way my community is (dis)connected. I am taking ownership for my share in it. I will speak up when I need to (which may be often). I will lend a hand when I can. I will be an example to those around me of the types of qualities I expect from them: compassion, decency, courage, kindness, open-mindedness, inclusivity, and hope.

That last one—hope—is so important to me now. As I said before, I am an optimist in my core. I believe in the goodness of people and the greatness of our future together. And I cannot help but look to the arc of human history and American history to bolster my belief. The greater story being told is one of progress. No, that progress is not always direct and steady—there is often a step back after a few hard-won steps forward—but the arc is no less clear. I have faith that, however this step we are now taking becomes defined by the history books, it will not stop the greater march of Progress. I am not willing to surrender that optimism simply because we have a new temp in the Oval Office. Onward and upward!

How about you? How are your heart and mind as we transition from one President to the next? Open up your journal and give yourself a little check-up. How has this election and transition treated you? How closely did you follow the seemingly endless campaign season? Did your favorite candidate become a nominee? Did your favorite nominee win? By the end of the campaign—not the election–how disgusted were you? What bothered you most? Was there anything you particularly liked about the campaign process? How about the election? What was your reaction to the results? How has that changed during the transition period leading up to Inauguration Day? Where are you with it now? Start with your heart. What are your emotions as the new administration gets under way? Now to your head. How are you expecting things to go in the next four years? How do you think this leadership will change your life, if at all? How have you decided to think and act in the process? Do you plan to get more involved in your community? Do you plan to speak up more about your beliefs or about injustice? Are you preparing to lead with Love? What can you do to best bring about the world that you wish to live in? Leave me a reply and let me know, “How are you processing our country’s changes?”

Choose Love,

William

P.S. If today’s letter resonated or helped you along, please share it. Let’s own who we are and rise from there. Blessings!

Lutefisk, Lefse, & Other Holiday Traditions

DSC_0893“When we recall Christmas past, we usually find that the simplest things—not the great occasions—give off the greatest glow of happiness.” –Bob Hope

Hello friend,

Ready or not, the holiday season is upon us! There are so many different holidays & reasons to celebrate this time of year—Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Year’s, Winter Solstice, even Wright Brothers Day (December 17, of course!), and more—depending upon how you were raised and the choices you have adopted since then. But let’s face it: in America, at this time of the year, it is Christmas that dominates the scene. We are a nation of Christmas. Even though for some, the holiday retains aspects of its original religious significance, it is safe to say that between Santa, the amount of money we spend on gifts, and the cross-cultural dominance of its symbols, Christmas has become mostly a secular celebration, like Halloween or Thanksgiving.

Because of this secularization, whether you are a Christian or not, you are probably about to embark on a week or two of Christmas-related rituals, leading right into the New Year’s Eve/New Year’s Day shenanigans. Many of these rituals involve your family, of course, and that means they are not simply rituals. They are traditions. They have been in your family for years, maybe even generations. Some are heart-touching. Some are vomit-inducing. Some somber. Some hilarious. All are meaningful in ways you can’t totally explain. So, basically, they are like your family!

When I was a kid, we would drive a couple of hours to the town where my parents grew up so we could spend Christmas Eve with my grandparents and cousins. My Grandma Jeanne would make a traditional turkey dinner for us, which was delicious. My Grandpa Mel, though, always insisted that she include on the menu a platter of lutefisk. If you don’t know what lutefisk is, consider yourself lucky. Picture a very pale, very fishy-tasting slab of rubber soaking in warm water. Come on, Grandpa Mel! Give me a break! This is your Norwegian tradition? This is the part of your heritage you want to pass down? I am glad to say that lutefisk is one tradition which has met its demise in my family’s current generation.

Food & drink are such an integral part of so many of our traditions, though, aren’t they? In my family, the favorite food tradition comes on Christmas morning, when my Mom makes her cheesy, hammy eggbake (is that a word?), caramel rolls, and sliced oranges. That may sound like an odd combo to you, but there might be a mutiny in the house if she did not make them to eat before we all go down to open presents.

Ah, the presents! We are totally a Christmas morning family. When I was a kid, we would get to open one present on Christmas Eve: the one from our cousins who were Christmas Eve people. If my parents had a “family present” to give us—a game of some sort—we might get to open that one too. But now that the cousins don’t exchange anymore, we are a Christmas-Morning-Only house.

And we have to be at my parent’s house—the house that I grew up in—to open them. When I was a kid, if we took the two-hour drive to be with my grandparents and cousins for Christmas Eve, we turned around at the end of a long night and drove back across the frozen tundra so we would be home for Christmas morning presents at our house. Even as we got into our college and early adulthood, no one dared to miss Christmas at home. Wouldn’t dream of it. Multiple kids with spouses and in-laws have complicated things, of course, and in recent years a couple of my siblings have had to take their turn at the in-laws’ houses instead. Spoiled as we are, none of us take it well. I am happy to say that even after all of the wandering I have done over the years, I have always made it home for Christmas. Some years there are twenty of us sleeping under one roof, with only our spouses feeling cramped. My kids absolutely love it, as do I.

One of these years, one of the families of my siblings will announce that they are starting their own tradition and will no longer be going to my parents’ house—or my parents will lock us all out—and I will be very sad about that.

I think one way that my family might be peculiar—just one, of course—is that we have no Christmas Eve traditions. The only thing remotely like it is that most people go to church. But some years, people are just getting to town that night and thus don’t go, and my little part of the family never goes. Other years, folks have split up and gone to different churches. So, even the church part is not so traditional. And then we follow it up with a totally random meal that changes from year to year. As I said, we are a Christmas Day people, not Christmas Eve.

But I do love Christmas Dinner! After the late-morning eggbake and the presents, my old man goes up to the kitchen and has his own tradition of getting very surly about anyone getting in his space for the next several hours as he prepares his prime rib. So, we are all desperately hungry by the time dinner rolls around. And it is a true delight, including the traditional Scandinavian specialty, lefse, covered in butter and tons of sugar (which guarantees that my kids will continue this tradition). But alas, no lutefisk. Sorry, Grandpa Mel. The best part of the whole deal for me, though, is the Swedish Cream with raspberry sauce that my Mom makes for dessert. That smooth, creamy-dreamy concoction slays me every year. It is my kind of tradition!

One of my personal traditions is writing in my journal in the afternoon between presents and supper—seeing as I am shut out of the kitchen by the surly guy upstairs—and including a list of all of the presents I got, for posterity’s sake. I like to think I will enjoy looking back on those entries one day, the thought of the presents bringing back lots of fun memories to swim around in.

Thinking now of all of these traditions is doing just that. I haven’t been able to wipe the smile off of my face since I started writing this letter. I love the holidays for the memories they create. That reminds me of one last thing I do every year no matter what: I thank my lucky stars for the family I get to share the holiday with and for this wonderful life I get to live every day in between. I am wildly blessed. I thank the holidays for reminding me of that. Every year. Same place, same time.

How about you? What are your holiday traditions? Get out your journal and be ready to smile as you write. Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way first. Are there any traditions that you plod through every year just because “it’s tradition,” gritting your teeth through every bit of it? How tempted are you to step up and suggest ending that tradition? (I remember being so relieved when we finally stopped buying presents for every single person in the extended family, but it took someone finally saying something before it happened.) What is the oldest tradition that you take part in? Is it more meaningful because of its longevity? Which traditions mean (or meant) the most to your parents? Are those the ones that mean the most to you, too? Which ones are the most fun? How about the food? Do you eat the same meals every year at your gatherings? What are your favorite dishes specific to holiday meals? Do you have a version of lutefisk (i.e. something awful but traditional) at your meals? Is there something like a Swedish Cream that only makes an appearance once per year but that you dream about the rest of the year? Do you have any holiday traditions that have nothing to do with family? If you had to pick only three of your traditions to continue for years to come, which would you choose? What makes them keepers? Do all of the traditions make the holidays more fun or more overwhelming? Leave me a reply and let me know: What are your favorite holiday traditions?

Cheers to you and yours,

William

P.S. If this letter got you in the holiday spirit or brought up some fond memories from the back of your mind, pass it on. Spread love this season!

From Gripes to Grapes: Finding Your Way to THANKFUL

IMG_1667“Be thankful for every mountain, because it is the mountain top that will give you the best view of the world.” –Gugu Mona

Hello friend,

Last Sunday at my spiritual gathering, the minister explained that the collection for the day would go entirely to the refugee family that our congregation is sponsoring and who will be arriving in a couple of weeks. We were also collecting household goods—beds, sheets, lamps, cleaning supplies, etc.—to get them started on their new life in America. Well, one person in my row was paying attention to the minister.   So, when the basket was passed around, I pulled out my wallet and grabbed more than I usually do. My wife looked over, her eyes got big, and she whispered, “Whoa! Big spender!” I whispered back my defense: “It’s for the refugees.” An “Ahh” and a look of recognition appeared, followed by a nod of approval and a thumbs-up.   In that moment, I suddenly felt so grateful for something that usually has me either worrying or complaining: my bank account.

You see, as I alluded to in my letter to you a few weeks ago (see “How Much Is ENOUGH?”), I tend to be gripped by dread and insecurity each time I open my wallet. I hate spending money, and wish I had more of it so I wouldn’t be so obsessed by it (at least that’s how I explain away my worries and stinginess). So why was I suddenly feeling grateful for the money in my wallet and so willing to part with it?

Because I realized that I have a lot more of it than the entire refugee family has, and I actually have a bank account to fill my wallet up again when it goes empty. And in that moment, I realized that that was called good fortune.

In this time called Thanksgiving, I think I am usually like most people: I take a moment to give thanks for my family and friends, my health, clean water, a roof over my head, and warm food in my belly. Those thoughts humble me, and they connect me back to my Creator and what is really important in this world. I love Thanksgiving for just that reason: the humble reminder.

But as I thought about my sudden burst of gratitude concerning my old nemesis, money, something struck me about my usual Thanksgiving moment of gratitude: I am letting myself off easy.

Think about it. How about much work does it take to be grateful—on a day that we get to take off of work for the specific purpose of giving thanks for our blessings—for the things that are so obviously good in your life?

That’s why the money incident got my attention. Money is just not something I am used to being overwhelmed with gratitude for, or believing I have in such abundance that I should always be feeling grateful for. I really should, though, because I realize now that I do, indeed, have enough.

But I don’t always feel grateful. Instead, I worry. I gripe. I clamor for more. I get a little bitter. Those aren’t good feelings. I don’t want more of them.

I truly enjoyed the experience of feeling grateful for the money I have and that I could give some away. Of course, I am a big fan of an unexpected joy and a boost of gratitude. So, I started thinking of the other things I am most hung-up about in my little corner of the world. You know, the things I tend to complain about, fear, or be depressed by. These last couple of days, I’ve been trying to figure out how I can change those downers into things I can be grateful for. I’ve come up with a few ideas.

I am not a Winter person. I never have been. I don’t like the cold. I don’t like shoveling snow. I don’t like the consuming darkness. And I despise the inconvenience of putting on so many clothes before leaving the house. It’s just not me. I’m a Summer guy. So, as these cold, dark days have been descending upon me following a lovely Autumn, my tendency is to get the grumbles. Misery loves company, and there are people everywhere I go who are willing to complain about Winter if I give them a little nudge. But today, I am flipping the script. Today I am focusing on the fact that the cold, dark days of Winter are usually the time when I get my most and best writing done. Of course, I love that. So, come on, Winter! I am already grateful for you!

One nice thing about this process is that I am realizing that I don’t have a lot that I consistently complain about, no anchor in my life that always brings me down. I am grateful for that all by itself.

I have to admit, though, that I have been carrying around a weight of sadness since the election, and even in the months leading up to it, as I watched my country be revealed as a place I had been blindly hoping it was not. I confess to a silent resentment toward my many family members who voted for this person whose success translates into other members of my family and my friends living in greater fear for their physical safety and the potential loss of their civil rights. I have had a terrible time reconciling that. I don’t want to feel that anger toward these people that I love. So, today I am trying (with all my might) to let that resentment go. I am deciding to focus on the fact that they are otherwise loving, decent people who have always treated us, on a one-to-one basis, very kindly. I am grateful for that, and I will keep working hard to focus on that kindness.

On a less personal and more broad scale, I have been fairly devastated by what has felt like the loss of the country I thought I had been living in. Though I had been dispirited by the entire year-and-a-half Presidential campaign and its recurring themes of racism, misogyny, and religious intolerance, I was somehow still hopeful that my fellow countrymen would, when they and their consciences stepped into the voting booths together, make a bold and decisive stand against that brand of ignorance.

Of course, my optimism was shown to be shockingly misguided. My psyche has been ravaged as I have watched the ensuing expressions of hate in our schools and streets, as well as the celebrations by white nationalist and white supremacist groups about the election results and the Cabinet appointments that have followed. I have listened to my loved ones who aren’t straight, white, Christian, American-born males express their fears and share the bad experiences they have had due to their identities. I’ve been feeling so stupid because I believed something about my country that turned out to be untrue, and then I have felt sick about the truth. I have to be honest: as a guy who tries to practice and preach Gratitude and always searches for the silver lining, I have had a hard time finding it on this topic these last couple of weeks.

But then I was standing in my kitchen on Thursday evening, looking out over the Thanksgiving meal being enjoyed at my dining table and family room sofas by a small gathering of friends and family members. There was lots of laughter, but there were also interesting discussions about a wide range of topics, including faith and social issues. After listening to some specifics in the few small groups, I pulled my view back a bit further and saw something different, something that changed me.

Here in this one room in my home was a microcosm of the America I had believed in just a few weeks ago. There were white people, Christian people, straight people, able-bodied people, American-born people, and male people, of course. But there were also black people, multiracial people, Muslim people, nonreligious people, gay people, disabled people, immigrant people, and female people. They were just enjoying each other and strengthening the bonds of community and humanity by learning more about one another. It was a little, one-room Utopia.

So, despite all of the legitimate fear and worry that these people feel with the recent election results, and despite how down I have been about living in a country that voted for this fear by voting in the intolerance and bigotry that causes it, my table reminds me that I can still do something about it. That we can still do something about it. It may become more difficult in the next few years, and we may be doing a lot more comforting in our gatherings than we would like. But if we are intentional, and if we keep Love at the forefront, we will not be broken by this setback. The arc of the Universe inevitably bends forward, toward progress. It is not always linear, but the long course of history shows it to be steady. I am thankful that the people who gather at my table just as they are—as equals—will be the keepers of the flame, the ones insisting on progress despite formidable obstacles in our path. I am so, so thankful for that.

And I needed the reminder.

How about you? What are the things in your life that you usually complain about or that drag you down that you are willing to try to turn into things you can be grateful for? Open up your journal and peruse your pattern of thoughts. What do you complain about? Is it big stuff or small stuff? Is it worthy of your effort it takes to complain? What is the stuff that annoys you but that you hold your tongue about? What kinds of things really depress you or otherwise drag you down? Do your issues tend to be constant or recurring things—like money or Winter—or unique issues that come up once, like an election? Pick an issue. What can you do today to change your mind about that issue to the point that you are grateful for its existence? Try that question with progressively bigger hang-ups, going as deep as you can with each to come up with something positive about them that you can be thankful for. How hard is this for you? I think it is easier sometimes to imagine how you will see these “problems” twenty years from now, because from that point-of-view you might be able to see how these issues were actually blessings helping you get to where you need to go. But maybe not. Do you have anything that you absolutely cannot spin in a grateful direction? Is that due to a lack of imagination or effort on your part, or is it just so dark and bad that there is no lens from which to look at it and find something to be grateful for? Does this quest for gratitude make you feel better and help you to see light where you didn’t before? Is this a natural habit for you or something you need much more work to develop? Leave me a reply and let me know: Can you find your way to THANKFUL? 

You are a gift,

William

P.S. If today’s letter helped you to move toward an attitude of gratitude, or if something else resonated with you, please share it. Gratitude is worth spreading!

Whatcha Watchin’?

dsc_0687“I think I’m always so much more happy with books and movies and stuff. I think I get more excited about well-done representations of life than life itself.” —Richard Linklater

Hello friend,

I’m sure most of you young people have gotten in on this new fad that people are calling the “Worldwide Web.” It also goes by the name “Internet.” It’s been out for a few years now, so even old guys like me are catching on. I have been sending the electronic mail and even printing out directions for my next roadtrip with a slick new program called Mapquest (you should try it; if you have a printer, that is). Anyway, the technology these days is way better than the old Commodore 64 and Apple IIe, so you might want to check into the upgrade if you haven’t. It’s all happening!

Well, I am about to let you in on a little secret about what I believe will be the next thing you will be hearing about around the old water cooler. Are you paying attention? Okay, here goes: you can now watch your favorite TV shows on your computer! I am serious. Movies, too! It’s the craziest thing you ever heard of, but I am telling you, it’s true. You just type in the name of the program you want to watch, and there it is! It’s like all of your favorite Beta or VHS tapes are right there inside your computer waiting for you to choose them. Like a jukebox! You can start watching on your computer, pause it, then turn on the same show on your telephone (if you have one of those mobile kinds) or electronic tablet, right where you left off. I know that sounds outlandish, but I am telling you, it will catch on! It is called “Netflix,” and it will be even bigger than “Simon” or the “FreeCell” some day. Some day…..

But seriously, I just discovered Netflix last week. Honest to God! Yes, I had heard of it before—and I have also heard the name “Hulu” and am now guessing that is probably magic, too—but never actually knew how it worked. The last I heard, they mailed you a DVD, and after you mailed it back, you could request another one. Wasn’t that Netflix? I could be thinking of something else. Anyway, I have now seen behind the curtain, and let me just say, IT IS AMAZING!!! You actually just type in a show and it’s right there! I know I sound like an idiot right now, but I’m not kidding: this thing has blown my mind away, almost as much as when the iPod came out (that thing still impresses me, by the way). Netflix!

Now I wish I had the time and priorities to be a TV and movie guy again. I used to be a huge movie fan and carved out the time to watch them. I had a few regular television shows, too, and otherwise whittled some mindless hours away channel-surfing. Those days are gone now, with the kids totally dominating the television at my house and my priorities having switched to writing blogs and books and such. I recorded (and loved) the series “Parenthood” until it ended a couple years ago, and haven’t made the time to find a show since. And movies are just too long for my tired and otherwise-engaged mind. As much as I love them, they make me feel antsy about “wasting” my time when I could otherwise be writing.

So, I am not really a watcher of anything anymore (and also, if you could not tell, not at all hip or aware of pop culture). And, as much as I think of myself as a book-lover, I haven’t exactly been blazing through those lately, either. If I am riding the machines at the gym, I read. Otherwise, it is at bedtime. And after a long day, that iPad usually smacks me in my dozing face after about a paragraph or two. Try again tomorrow.

But then came the election. After a night in front of the television and then the next day of trudging through the muck on Facebook, this old guy’s system decided it needed a little break from reality. I decided to take the rest of the week off of social media and perhaps seek out a few things that would take my mind to a different place. I quietly gave myself permission to read during the daytime and do whatever else was needed to decompress, including turning on the television (but NOT the news!).

Enter Netflix.

My wife had signed up a few weeks ago for the free trial month, and my kids quickly figured the whole thing out and have been watching all things animated. Being a little slow on the uptake myself, I was astounded when I realized how much stuff was on there, and that I could do it on my iPad. What a revelation!

Anyway, my point is not to impress you with my technological grandpa-ness, but rather to share a bit about what I have been watching and reading lately. Hopefully by comparing notes on, we can enrich each other’s lives (did I just say that about television?).

As for screen time, I have been a little bit all over the map (that Netflix is like a candy store, I tell you!). The first thing I watched (at full blast while giving myself a haircut) was “Good Will Hunting,” which I haven’t seen in ages but still adore. During a lunch break from writing, I watched the first two episodes of “The Office” for more giggly nostalgia. I even watched the first couple of scenes from “American Beauty,” which is another favorite that I haven’t seen since Bill Clinton was in office. Some day I will make the time for the rest.

Other than those old classics, though, I watched a few newer documentaries that I am here to recommend. My dear friend suggested I watch “Before the Flood,” about Leonardo DiCaprio’s world travels learning about climate change (and our impending doom). It was fascinating and seriously disturbing. I then searched for the one thing I had specifically wanted to watch when my wife said she was getting Netflix: Ava Duvernay’s “13th.” It is also deeply disturbing but so eye-opening. With all of the ignorance in our country about black-white relations and distrust of law enforcement, I think this film would help so many people gain some perspective and compassion. After watching, I recommended it to my friend who had put me onto “Before the Flood,” and lo and behold, she responded with another assignment for me. “Hate Rising” with newsman Jorge Ramos was–you guessed it–deeply disturbing. Important, but disturbing. I love a good documentary! (Oh, I am such a nerd.)

With all of those awful visions of melting icebergs, overcrowded prisons, and burning crosses, I probably could have used a few more episodes of “The Office.” Instead, I got my levity and inspiration from the books I have been reading of late.

Typically, I try to keep only one book going at a time—usually an autobiography–but I am spread pretty wide these days, so my mood can dictate what I grab at the moment. I just now finished Amy Poehler’s book Yes Please!, which I checked out only because I had seen quotes from her that appealed to me. I like her attitude and the style of the book (and now will probably look up “Parks and Recreation” on Netflix!).

In the meantime, my sweet sister recently gave me two books that have my attention. I am nearly done with Jen Sincero’s You Are a Badass, which is a sassy, self-help manifesto that I find highly motivating (the only downside: I had to explain the word “badass” to my children, who quickly spotted it like hawks). The other one, which I have honestly only read a handful of pages in but seems promising, is Bob Goff’s Love Does. I like that title.

I am also now returning to Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of The United States, which I took a little hiatus from because I was so slow with it. If you ever have an inclination to learn the real story of this country—not the one you learned in school—you must read this one. In a wonderful piece of synchronicity, even Matt Damon’s genius title character in “Good Will Hunting” recommends this book (Netflix does it again!). Oh, and I almost forgot! I am deep into the Harry Potter series—now in the fifth book—which I read every night with my daughter. It is a fun departure for me, something I wouldn’t pick out on my own. And I love to share my book love with my daughter, who now reads way more than I do (I am jealous!).

All of these titles of movies, television, and books have been a godsend of late, a way for me to take an emotional vacation, even if some of the topics have been scary and sad. Now, as I try to return to some normalcy with my schedule after a few days with my head in the clouds, it is my challenge to keep a small slice of vacation in my days, a little window to allow these books and shows to spirit me away. Just yesterday, I found myself reaching for my iPad while I brushed my teeth, hoping to catch a few more minutes of “The Office” and one more laugh for the day. I’m telling you, those Netflix folks are onto something! If they got me, they can get anyone. I guess I need to add a few more minutes to my day or a few more eyes in my head. (In my best Jerry-Seinfeld-gritting-his-teeth voice:) “NETFLIX!!!!”

How about you? What are you watching and reading? Open up your journal and think about the information and entertainment you consume. Are you more of a book person or a TV/movie person? Do you mix those pretty well, or are you pretty solidly in one camp? If you are all about the screen, are you more into TV series or movies? What do you watch on television? What shows do you want to watch? I hear people raving on social media about so many different shows that I wouldn’t even know where to begin. If the last good comedy I watched was when “The Office” was on, do you have any recommendations for me? Are there any good dramas that will make me cry every week like “Parenthood” did? What about movies? Are you more inclined to watch new ones or old ones that you have seen before? Does having access to them on your phone or tablet make you more likely to watch them but less likely to really concentrate on them? I ask that because I normally like to fully immerse myself in the cinematic experience and soak it all up—no distractions, sitting in the dark—or else not watch at all, but as soon as I discovered Netflix, there I was watching “Good Will Hunting” while I was cutting my hair.   I still enjoyed it, but the overall experience was of a lower quality. Do you find that is becoming more normal for you with all of this access? What movies would you recommend for a guy who kind of fell off the planet about eight years ago (and who is kind of snooty about movies)? How about books? On a scale of one to ten, how book-crazy are you? What have you been reading lately? Is this normal for you, are you trying a new genre? Is fiction or non-fiction more your thing? What recommendations do you have for me? I am open to anything! Whose memoir or biography would you most recommend? Which of these three—TV, movies, or books—do you spend the most time with? Which do you desperately wish you had more time for? Do you consider yourself a connoisseur of one of them? What purpose do these three serve for you—escapism, entertainment, education, inspiration, stress relief, or something else? What are the top three items on your wish list for your next open window of time? Leave me a reply and let me know, “Whatcha watchin’?”

Enjoy your life,

William

P.S. If you liked what you read and thought about today, feel free to share. Everyone loves a recommendation! Cheers!

Health Care, Values, & Obligations: What Are Taxes Meant For?

dsc_0588“I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization.” –Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Hello friend,

Have you ever been in the middle of one of your most mundane daily activities—exercising, depositing money at the bank, adding two numbers, driving to the grocery store, tying your shoes, stuff like that—doing your thing the way you have always done it, when someone comes along and points out a totally different way to do it? Or maybe they even ask you why you are doing it in the first place? Suddenly you are forced to defend something you have never even thought about before. You have always just done it. It’s how you learned, and you never considered another way. Never even realized there was an option. But then there it is, right in front of you. It seems so obvious that you cannot believe that you didn’t notice it all this time. And here you are, your mind freshly blown, with a workout that suddenly has you losing weight, doing “new math,” banking online, having your groceries delivered, or using the “Circle Technique” on your laces. It seems crazy! Has that ever happened to you?

I think that is happening to me with health care. I suppose it has been happening for many years, but it feels sudden. My mind is spinning with a new possibility that was there all along.

Let me just say up front what I want and why. I want “free” health care for all people, and I want it because ensuring people’s health and well-being is at the core of the kind of common human decency that I believe we owe to the people we share space with.  

I could go on and on for pages about the Why part, but let’s get right to the meat of things. I look at health care like any other thing that our parents and grandparents believed was the job of the government–using our tax dollars–to provide for our care and convenience. Without any of us even thinking about it, of course our tax dollars pay for a police force, the fire department, streets and highways, a sewer system, drinking water, a strong military, elementary and high school education, and environmental protection.

Seriously, have you questioned lately why we all pay taxes on those things? Have you ever questioned it? I haven’t. And when I do question them now, my answer is, “Of course I am willing to pay taxes to fund those services. They exist to provide my most basic needs and things that I value: protection from hostile forces, safe travel, order in my neighborhood, health, safe food and drink, education.” I can’t imagine ever opposing chipping in for those basics for all people. They are what I would deem essential, and no more for me than anyone else. I won’t say it is technically everyone’s “right” to have these basics, but it reflects our basic human decency that we see them as essential for all. Therefore, it is our obligation to provide them.

If you are with me so far, I think now is a good time to sneak in my basic question: How is health care NOT on that list of essentials? Honestly, I am trying to see how it differs and am struggling for answers. The only thing I can come up with is that, “It’s just how it’s always been in America.” (And, I must add, only in America.)

I suppose we all have the same blind spot I had until recently! I don’t think I am the only one who, if pressed for an answer, sees caring for the health of all as at least as important as providing fire protection for all or education for all. I don’t want to get into splitting hairs here since I have already deemed them all essential, but if forced, I don’t think it would be farfetched to suggest that, of those three just mentioned—health, fire protection, and education—health care just might be most important. In any case, I have yet to hear an argument that kicks it off the list.

But perhaps you want to quibble. Maybe you think the health and well-being of your neighbors should not be your concern, and anyway, you aren’t interested in paying more in taxes to help them out. They aren’t that valuable. So let’s look at some of the other stuff you regularly pay taxes for. As we do, try to build a sort of ranking system for how important—indeed, how essential–you believe these are relative to your own health and that of others you know. Here are just a few:

  • City parks
  • Space exploration
  • Street sweeping
  • Recreational programming
  • Subsidies for agriculture and big oil companies
  • The Arts
  • Lifetime salaries for Senators and Congressmen
  • National Parks
  • Science research
  • Zoos
  • Corporate Bailouts (e.g. the auto industry or Wall Street)
  • Libraries
  • Snow removal

We could go on and on, of course, as our taxes go to so many different and important things. How is your ranking system going so far? I won’t bore you with how I rank them. I will only say that I don’t value any of them—value them for me or for others (and believe me, I really love libraries!)—more than I do health care.

I really want to make clear here that, before all of the defenses go up and we have to start battling each other about how we could pay for it, I am just trying to establish an agreement on what we VALUE. It is a separate issue. My point is that if we all agreed with me (this happens in my dreams, and it’s fabulous!) in thinking health care was at least as important (even essential) as things like education, clean water, and the police, then, logically speaking, we would be forced to agree that we ought to be willing to ensure equal access to health care for everyone by taking care of it with our tax dollars. By extension—and this is the painful realization part—if we have agreed on what we value and yet still fail to act to make it right, we are failing a moral obligation.   The blood of the uncared for is—literally and figuratively—on our hands. I am not okay with that.

I know, I know, you probably wanted to skim through that last paragraph really fast and get to the part where you defend your side by saying it is too expensive and our system is broken and it’s not your fault and such. I feel you. I really do. That’s why I think it is important to first separate the argument so that we are not conflating what we value (morally speaking) and what we are eager to pay for (financially speaking).

And believe me, I make no claim that I am any kind of an expert on how much everything costs and how much more or less we would pay if we blew up our system entirely and went to a single-payer system (a.k.a. socialized medicine, universal health care, or government-run health care). As a total amateur on these topics, my sense is that we already pay a ton for insurance premiums, co-pays, and deductibles, and it also seems like pharmaceutical companies charge through the roof and own so many of our representatives in Washington, DC. My guess is that if the insurance industry was dismantled and the pharmaceutical prices were government-controlled, so much of that money that we now spend could go to getting everyone equal access to quality care. I am sure there is a down side of it, too, because at this point, who really trusts the government to run anything, right?

But we are Americans. We take pride in the idea that we are exceptional. It is supposed to be our thing to figure out the best way to do stuff, and then to keep leading the way with our exceptionalism. If we look at the examples of all the hundreds of other countries in the world who provide health care to their people, and if we see problems in their systems, I feel confident that we could figure out the solutions and move forward with a system that affirms in action what we claim to value (Because Love does, right? It doesn’t just say.). I feel like the “changing our system will be too hard” excuse is weak and lazy, especially if the result is immoral. I think we are better than that. I hope we are. I feel like it is time to put our money where our values are.

How about you? Is health care something you value enough to put your tax money down to guarantee it for everyone? Open up your journal and try to keep an open mind as you parse through this sticky issue. I think this is an especially tough one to tackle with an open heart and mind because, for many of us, it is just something we haven’t ever considered. Our system has been this way our whole lives, and a suggestion to change something long-held usually meets with defense as a first reaction (because of course we are right). So, take a breath, and start with logic. First, is your health valuable to you? How valuable? As important as your safety? Your education? Your water? Your public parks? The arts? Which of the things that you pay taxes for do you think are moral obligations of a society to provide for its people? Which are things that are great and you value, but they aren’t obligations or essential? Which things that you are taxed on do you feel are a rip-off? For the sake of argument, let’s say we had always been taxed for universal health coverage: where would it fit with your last three answers: Moral Obligation, Important-But-Not-Essential, or a Waste/Rip-off? Based on your answer, should single-payer/universal health coverage be a part of the American system going forward? Okay, if you were able to answer most of those logically, relax! Now, feel those natural defenses that probably came up when this issue arose. What makes you most squeamish about agreeing to include universal health care to your list of givens? Is it the money itself (that you think it is going to be much more expensive for you)? Is it that you don’t want to put anything else into the government’s hands? Is it that you don’t think some people deserve it or that too many people who aren’t taxed much because they are poor will take advantage of your hard-earned dollars by using the health care system as much as you do? Do you agree with my assertion that if we agree that health is of such importance to us that we deem medical care to be essential—like we agree on education and safety and the like—then we are morally obligated to provide it? If not, where is the flaw in my thinking? If my thinking is sound, then we are either failing morally on this topic or you disagree that health is of such importance. Which is it? Leave me a reply and let me know: Which things are worthy of your tax dollars, and how does health care fit into your priorities?  

See yourself in your neighbor,

William

P.S. If this made you really look at health care and taxes for the first time, or if it made you think of them in a new light that helped you clarify your position, I hope that you will share it with others. We owe it to ourselves to examine our values. May you be Peace.

How Much Is ENOUGH? Money & Our Fear of Losing It

DSC_0043“He who is not satisfied with a little, is satisfied with nothing.” –Epicurus

Hello friend,

I recently had the most eye-opening conversation with a loved one. Have you ever known someone for a long time, are sure you understand them thoroughly, and then one day they tell you something that makes you go, “Really??? You really think that?” Maybe you always kind of knew something like that was in them and just steered away from it in conversation, or maybe it totally just came out of left field. In either case, the new information forces you to look at them through an entirely new lens. The color and texture of their portrait in your mind has changed. It is amazing what a simple revelation can do!

So, here’s how it happened. We were talking about taxes and what types of things they should cover. A recurring theme from her side was that she shouldn’t have to pay for anyone else’s problems; it is her hard-earned money and no one else is entitled to it (“entitlements” was a word frequently repeated). I raised the issue of health care and the different ways it is paid for around the world. I proposed the possibility of blowing up our current system, removing the insurance part of the deal, letting the government take over (scary thought, I know), and guaranteeing “free” health care for everyone in the country. This, of course, would mean using our taxes—most likely a large increase in them—to pay for it. [WRITER’S NOTE: This topic of taxes and health care is rich journaling territory, as it speaks directly to our values. And now that it is in my head, don’t be surprised if the whole letter next week is about it. See how easy it is to come up with a topic—ha!]

The less interesting part of her reply to my proposal was the typical response of a conservative person to a liberal idea, essentially, “It’s an admirable idea. You figure out a way to make it work and, more importantly, a way to pay for it without taking any more of my money, and I am in.” As I pressed her more on why, if the spiritual leaders that most of the world’s people claim to worship urged us to do so, we are not ALL morally obligated to find a way to get everyone taken care of, I could feel her defenses rising higher and higher. The tension was palpable.

Finally, she said in a panic, “If China calls back the debts we owe, we would ALL be in huge trouble and NONE OF US would have the health coverage that you are talking about!” This was a totally new angle to me, and I have to admit to being a bit stunned by it. “None of us?” I asked. “NONE!” She said it as a fact. There was genuine alarm in her tone. I explained how the wealthy people have, since our country’s inception, always had enough. They have never been without plenty of food and the best health care. “No matter what happens,” I said,“the wealthy will be alright.” I could actually hear comfort and reassurance in my tone. Her fearful, doubt-filled voice responded meekly, “Do you think so?”

Now might be a good place to give you a little background on the socioeconomic history of my companion. She is a White woman who was raised in a comfortable, middle class home in a comfortable, middle class town. Her parents were never out of work, and they paid for her college education. She married an upwardly mobile White man, and they slowly and steadily increased their wealth—paying for their own children’s educations as well–to the point that now, in retirement, they own multiple homes across the country and have clearly moved beyond the middle class. To any neutral onlooker, it is clear that she will never want for anything financially for the rest of her life. And, much to her credit, she continues to share generously with her family.

So, why the pronounced fear of losing her money to the whims of Chinese financiers and her fierce protection of her tax dollars from the folks she believes are stealing from her by using “entitlements”? Hmmm…..

Talking with her left my mind spinning with theories and questions about this strange relationship between a woman and her money. While it may seem strange to me, I also realize it is probably not at all unique. This mentality of scarcity, of lack—as though, “If I share my money with others, I will never see it again and it won’t be replaced by other money,”—could be a familial thing. It could certainly be a generational thing. After all, this woman’s parents grew up during the Great Depression, and the lessons learned of necessity by that generation would undoubtedly have been passed down to her.

There is likely also something political about it. After all, isn’t that wariness and protection of one’s resources rooted in the very word “conservative”? I also think there is this “You pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” mentality that exists especially in people who already have money, and you can argue over whether that mentality is how they were able to get the money in the first place, or if the mentality is simply a way to justify a stinginess when it comes to sharing their money with others, whether through taxes or charitable donations.

I still can’t figure out the thing about limits, though. That is, Is there a dollar value high enough in her bank account such that she would finally feel like she would be great even if the country had a recession, or high enough that she wouldn’t mind if her tax dollars went to help others who haven’t been as lucky as she has? Or is it simply hard-wired that no matter how much she has, she will always have that scarcity mentality? And, paradoxically, could her swelling bank account make her even more protective of her dollars? After all, you always hear of those studies that say it is poor people who are most likely to share what they have with others, not the wealthy. Is it because poor people know how hard it is to have so little that makes them more likely to give to someone else who needs a hand? This is complicated!

Even as I try to come up with a clear explanation of my own relationship with money and how much is enough for me, I find inconsistencies that muddle the theory. One of my grandfathers was known as a real penny-pincher, and I can definitely tell that I inherited that, either genetically or socially passed. I do not like to spend money, especially on myself (even though I secretly delight in gifts of new stuff). While I have definitely given to causes, I also feel that dread of “Can I afford to give? Will there be enough left?” scarcity mentality when the doorbell rings or the donation basket comes around. I give, but not tons, and I usually do so with both a little twinge of worry and a heavy dose of guilt, knowing I could give more. In so many ways, I feel like a cheapskate. And yet, I am the first in line to vote for a levee or referendum that increases my taxes to put money into schools. And when my friend challenges me to come up with the answers to make quality health care accessible to everyone, I tell her that I don’t mind one bit if my taxes go way up to do it. I suppose I am like, “Take it all off the top—from my wages for taxes—and then let me figure out how to make it work with the rest.” Of course, I would like to have more than I do now—much more, even—but I am surviving in the middle right now. There is not much money for things like vacations or other extravagances, but there is plenty of food in the fridge.

I guess what I have always wanted is to have just enough so that I don’t have to think about it. You know, just up to the point where my penny-pinching tendencies wouldn’t have to kick in. I would like to be able to donate more than I do now and still have the food in the fridge. And while vacations and extravagances would be nice, I would be okay if I was always had as much as I do now.

So, maybe enough for me would actually be if I made more than I do now so that my taxes and donations could go up and I would be left with just as much for the bills as I have now.   That is being greedy, I know, because of course I could survive on less (billions of people around the world prove that). But, within the conditions of my spoiled American life and what I have become accustomed to, I will claim that as my baseline. I know my ambitious mind would drive for more if more were readily available, but I am okay with what I have. It allows for my dueling natural tendencies to co-exist: the penny-pincher and the guy who is eager to give in order to help others rise. That is enough for me.

How about you? How much money do you need to feel psychologically comfortable? The outward signs of comfort may be what you are imagining, but remember that we are really talking about a level of comfort in your mind with what you have, living without fear and without all your defenses up around the issue of your money. Where is that level for you? How would you categorize your current financial situation? Do you have as much as you need? I hope the answer to that is yes. Now, do you have as much as you want? Of course, we all probably want to be billionaires, but within reason, how much more do you want in order to feel the kind of comfort you usually imagine? Is your general mentality one of lack or abundance? How generous are you with your money? Do you feel that twinge of worry, like me, every time you open up your pocketbook? Is it a justified worry based on your situation, or are you actually like my friend who has plenty but worries anyway? How do you give? Are you someone who donates to causes that matter to you? Do you focus your generosity on family members? Do you begrudge the government for taking your money for taxes? Would you be fine with your taxes being higher? Do you live within your means, or do you outspend your resources? How does that play into your view on how much is enough? If you are a big spender, do you think there is any amount that you would agree is enough for you? How much fear do you have of losing your money and the status that comes with it? How extreme of a situation would it take for you to truly no longer have enough? How likely is that to occur? Does your fear of that loss match up to its probability? If you gave more—in whatever way—would you fear more? Why do we protect so fiercely? Are the wealthy generally the most protective of their money? If so, why? Is there some amount that you could name that, for almost anyone, ought to be enough? How about for you? Leave me a reply and let me know: How much is enough for you? 

May you be wealthy in Love and Peace,

William

P.S. If today’s letter helped you to look differently at your relationship with money and how protective you are of it, please pass it on. Share the gift of self-knowledge!

This Is NOT an Election Article!

dsc_0566“Accepting all the good and bad about someone. It’s a great thing to aspire to. The hard part is actually doing it.” –Sarah Dessen

Hello friend,

Imagine a group of college-age friends who grew up together. They are all figuring out what their path in life is. Nearly all of them, of course, are going the conventional routes: business, teaching, medicine, technology, trades, and the like. They want to be respectable, earning members of the workforce until they retire. Generally speaking, you would say they are a group of very stable people.

There are two outliers in their group, though. One friend has decided that she wants to follow her passion for the arts and become a painter. She’s not exactly sure how she will make it work financially, but she is a dreamer and has faith it will work out. The other friend has decided he is going to become an estate lawyer and make a fortune scamming old people out of their money. His goal is to make money, and he doesn’t care about the human cost.

How, then, does their stable group of friends react to these two who are straying from the conventional path?

As for the artist/dreamer, they are concerned for her but don’t dislike or distrust her for her decision. They dismiss her, in a way, as being too whimsical, not sensible enough, foolish for choosing the unstable path. They warn her about the starving artist lifestyle she is choosing, reminding her that she will be without health insurance or a 401K plan. The stable crew feels a little bad for their artist friend, even, as she “just doesn’t get it” and “lives in a fantasyland.” Her heart is in the right place, though, so they don’t dislike her. But they also don’t take her seriously and are relieved there aren’t lots more like her. She is a bit dangerous to their stability. Lovable, but dangerous.

The scamming lawyer, on the other hand, is now viewed by the friends as dangerous but unlovable. It is clear that his heart is not in the right place. A moral failing has entered the picture, and their sensibilities are offended by that. They are disappointed. They realize they can no longer trust him the way they thought they could. A wall has gone up in their relationship, one that is probably too steep to climb in order to build that relationship back to whole again.

The artist’s flaw, according to the group, is that she feels too much, she lets her heart guide her. The lawyer’s flaw is that he is heartless, callous. The artist can be forgiven for veering off the path of the rest of the group, but the lawyer cannot.

You are probably wondering why in the world I am having you think about these people. Well, lately I have been doing a lot of thinking about the individual people in my life, how I interact with each, and whether they seem more like someone who I want closer to me or someone who I need to distance myself from. I am oversensitive to just about everything, but especially to the prospect of spending time with people I think poorly of. I am repulsed by that and have left jobs and relationships because of it.

With the rise of Facebook, Twitter, and other social media, we have this magical way of reconnecting and staying in touch with so many more people than ever before. People from your past—high school and college friends, former colleagues—and even people whom you have never met in person. You can actually learn a lot about some of them. Sometimes more than you want to.

As you well know, it is political season. And while many of the people I know–whether intimately, in person, or online–tend to reveal little to nothing about their political views, there are certainly others who really put themselves out there for their candidate or cause. They reveal their positions on some topics that truly matter to me. That’s where it can get uncomfortable.

As I have watched other people’s interactions and tried to understand my own reactions to people on the other end of the political spectrum from me—I am quite liberal on just about all of the big topics—I see patterns emerging. So, I am developing my own pet theory on how a relationship between a liberal person and a conservative person plays out when their views are made known to the other. (Keep in mind that I am well aware that the people of the world hold a zillion varieties of viewpoints, and that the liberal and conservative in my theory are, by necessity, caricatured people that are to the far left and far right, respectively.) Check this out and be ready to help me tinker with my theory by sharing your personal pattern of reactions.

Remember the artist/dreamer of the friend group? Well, in my developing theory, the way the group viewed the artist is the way my conservative character views my liberal character. He (the conservative) sees her (the liberal’s) flaw as her “bleeding heart,” always thinking the government should help everyone and right wrongs. In his eyes, she is leading with her heart, which is foolish and impractical, because of course we can’t foot the bill for other people’s problems. Her insistence that we can is more annoying than anything. But at least her heart is in the right place, so he can’t despise her for that. He tolerates her.

To the liberal, on the other hand, the conservative is looked upon the way our friend group reacted to the scamming lawyer. She sees him as having abandoned his heart in favor of his pocketbook. His is a callous perspective, ignoring the plight of others and even basic human rights (I have been using universal health coverage in my ponderings, but we could use things like capital punishment, women’s health issues, LGBT rights, or the Syrian refugee crisis, too). He has taken moral issues and turned them instead into economic ones, ignoring hearts and souls in favor of financial calculations. This is incredibly disappointing—even hurtful—to the liberal. Her feelings are hurt by the seeming callousness of the conservative’s positions. Her sensibilities are offended. A trust has been broken. There is a “How could you?” in her reaction, as in, “How could you devalue human life this way?” The liberal does not want to believe someone’s heart could be so cold. It is a devastating realization. She is effectively done with him.

So, at the end of it, it looks as though the conservative would be more tolerant of the liberal than the liberal is of the conservative. The conservative sees the liberal as a failure of reason and practicality, whereas the liberal sees the conservative as a failure of character and conscience. Her failure is acceptable; his is not. He can continue with her in his life, just as the stable group of friends could keep the artist. The liberal, however, no longer feels any interest in fraternizing with the conservative, seeing him as the friend group sees the scamming lawyer: morally bankrupt. With the trust broken, for her, the relationship is as good as over.

So, that’s the theory at this point. Like I said, the positions are probably a bit extreme for most people. But I have to admit, the liberal side is mostly a projection of stuff coming up from my own heart in these situations. I recognized the feelings I was having in response to all of these political posts as well as my conversations with different people, and the theory emerged from me trying, mostly through my daily journal entries, to make sense of the feelings. I wanted some clarity, which is what journaling has always brought me.

This process has helped me to better understand my internal workings, as well as my evolving relationships with family members, friends, and online connections. I have to admit it is a bit disturbing to see the final product being a desire to end, or at least pull back from, a number of relationships that I had once enjoyed and valued, even if on a more superficial level. But I can’t fake it, either. As I mentioned early on, it is a weakness of mine that I am oversensitive. Another one is that I am stubborn. That combination makes me tough to hang with. If you break my trust, I don’t easily let it go. (And yes, I recognize the irony in the fact that despite seeing my political positions as more enlightened and compassionate than the other side, I am the one who ends up being more intolerant in the actual relationship. I guess personal boundaries come with a cost.)

I suppose I hope for other people’s sake that they can make peace with people who hold vastly different views more easily than I can, that they can either forgive or compartmentalize their politics. Maybe it is like my theory—the conservatives can do it better than the liberals can—or maybe it is only me. In any case, the theory-making helped me to know myself better. Even if the results have shaken me a bit, I am glad I took the dive.

How about you? How would you categorize your reactions to people whose views are starkly opposed to yours? It is probably helpful to start by locating yourself along the political spectrum. Are you fairly far in one direction overall, or pretty moderate? Is there one particular issue that you hold an extra-strong opinion about? Can disagreement on that issue trigger an emotional response from you? If you are on the conservative side of the spectrum, does my proposed theory resonate with you at all, i.e. do you find yourself being dismissive of liberals because their “bleeding hearts” make their proposals too impractical and expensive for your tastes, even if you tolerate them because they mean well? If that is not how you experience it, what is your reaction to someone you know who proposes a liberal idea? Do you find that the liberal ideas fail your test morally, or is it more logically or practically? If you are more left-leaning, does my theory resonate with you? Have you had the experience, in talking with conservatives about these issues, of being so dismayed—even hurt—by the callousness and lack of compassion in their positions to the point that you no longer wish to socialize with them? Have I gone too far in that side of the theory? Is your experience more like I described for the other side: it is frustrating that the conservative disagrees with you, but that has no bearing on how you rate their character and how much time you want to spend with them? If you are someone who is kind of in the middle on the issues—conservative on some, liberal on others—do you find yourself still leaning toward one side in terms of which friends you like or respect more, or is it also a pretty even mix? Is there something more morally upstanding about one side or the other? If you had to choose between spending your time with someone who is hopelessly impractical or someone who is immoral, who would you choose? Do you mostly try to avoid political discussions with people in your social groups so you aren’t forced to make these kinds of character evaluations and relationship changes? I think most of us do that at least some of the time, because let’s face it, it’s risky to wade into these waters. Is that an unhealthy denial, or is that simply a wise way to make life bearable in your little corner of the world? I am dying to know how you navigate this stuff! So please, leave me a reply and let me know: How do you handle your relationships with people who differ from you on important political issues? 

Claim your amazing self,

William

P.S. If today’s letter got you examining your relationships and how your political opinions shape your friend group and your tolerance for others, I hope you will share it. If you want these letters in your Inbox as soon as they are published, I invite you to sign up for the email.  Peace and Love, my friend.

Who Do You Wish To Be?

DSC_0042“To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.” –Kahlil Gibran, The Madman

Hello friend,

Thanks mostly to the upcoming election, we find ourselves today in a uniquely character-driven moment in social discourse. Not character like, “Oh that Trump, he is quite a character.” But rather, character in terms of “Who are these people at their core?” Oh sure, character comes up at some point in lots of major elections. When attacks on an opponent’s policy positions or voting record don’t move the needle, a candidate takes a swipe at the other one’s character, trolling into their past to find some event that might portray them as unpatriotic, corrupt, or cold-hearted. But this election is unique, I think, in that it seems like almost all of the ads and the rhetoric are about character. The candidates are, in lots of creative ways, branded as lying, bigoted, demagogic, ruthless, misogynistic, cold, arrogant, cowardly, greedy, buffoonish, self-serving, hateful, criminal, and so much more. Each side seems to want only to disqualify the other by virtue of all of these terrible characteristics rather than declaring their own case based on their own virtues and positions. Even though I am very tuned in, I must say the approach from both sides has me very turned off.

What I have realized this week is that two of the big reasons I am troubled by this campaign are coming together in a perfect storm that is raging against my natural wiring and leaving me wanting to address my own core qualities.

First, I am heavily inclined toward associating myself with positive, aspirational type of people. I don’t like to give my time and energy to thoughts of all of those negative qualities I mentioned above, and I am not drawn to people who possess them. Well, it’s more than not being drawn to them, though; it is more of an inborn repulsion that I feel. Negativity and shiftiness repel me; I feel a natural disgust in my bones in their presence. I do my best to be tapped into my intuitions and natural inclinations as I go through the world, and I try to honor them by following their lead. It is the best way I know to remain authentic and at peace.

With the characters we have trying to become President this year, I can tell that I am at war with myself over character issues that seem to plague both sides. I am not saying that I think it’s a toss-up as to which candidate feels more despicable to me—because I don’t—just that it is not a straightforward “Good vs. Evil” question when it comes to personal character. I like my elections—especially the ones for the highest offices in the land—to be between two (though more would be nice!) candidates who seem like good, solid people who just happen to hold different beliefs about what will make our country work best. Then it’s easy: just vote for the one whose vision is most similar to mine.

But it’s nice when the “Who This Person Is” part is not something that is troubling me, is not part of the equation when I step into the ballot box.

The second part of the storm that rubs against my personal grain is the “Focus on what’s so bad about the other/Show them who I’m not” tactic that has characterized the advertising and stump speeches of this campaign. Other than the fact that we have already had the scandals, slurs, and shortcomings rammed down our throats for months and months on end–and I am tired of that–my nature is to want the other side of the coin. I want to know about you, the candidate. I want to know what you are about, what you aspire to, how your life and your record reflect that, and how you think we can best move forward. That is the kind of political ad or speech that draws me in. (I have been proven wrong in my thinking that that is what they would want to tell us, too.)

Not coincidentally, that is the kind of stuff I like to wonder about the people I meet in my day-to-day life, too. I don’t enjoy small-talk, and I don’t enjoy complaints about how bad other people and things are in your world. I want to know what matters to you, what lights you up, who you want to be, and what you are doing to become that.

Actually, that’s exactly what I want to know about myself, too. It is the kind of stuff that makes good fodder for the pages of my personal journal. I might not address it head-on in every one of my daily entries—I am currently filling my 53rd volume–but it is part of the core of what my routine as a journal writer is about.

So, it is time to put my money where my mouth (or rather, pen) is! I told you that I am averse to hearing about how awful these people are from each other and how each will destroy us all. I told you how my gut draws me to aspirational people who are about telling their own truth. I told you how I long to hear about who a person is striving to be, what compels them. So, to Donald and Hillary, and especially to you, this is who I wish to be:

I wish to be a person who inspires others. I wish to be an example of how sincere self-reflection and an open mind can allow you to know who you are and what your purpose is. I want to be an example of how that self-knowledge, far from being something to fear and find shame in, is something that can grant you the deepest peace and gratitude, basking in the beauty that is your Truth. I wish to share the stories of people who are doing the daily work of lifting others up, providing the rest of us with living examples of empathy, courage, kindness, generosity, forgiveness, and social justice. I wish to be a person who brings people together to learn from each other, help each other, and enjoy each other. I wish to expose injustices where I find them, to give a voice to the voiceless. I wish to enlighten the most powerful among us in hopes that they will use their power for good. I wish to be an example of loving kindness for everyone I meet. I wish to be an example for my children of integrity and authenticity. I wish show my loved ones how valuable they are to me. I wish to embody Gratitude every day. I wish to be relentless in the pursuit of my dreams. I wish to be unapologetically me, all the time. I wish to be Peace. I wish to always be mindful of the Divine in me, and the unity of us All.  

That’s who I wish to be. Boy, do I have a LONG way to go! Oh well, at least I have a destination in mind.

How about you? Who do you wish to be? Open up your journal and your imagination. What do you see when you imagine the best version of you? In most of our minds, the quickest leap is probably to what describe what we are doing in that vision, but if you can, try to focus today on how you are being in the vision. What sort of character traits would you display while being the person you wish to be? What qualities would you embody? In general terms, in what areas do you see yourself being that ideal vision? In what positive ways would you like to affect people’s lives? How would you think differently about yourself? How would you treat your loved ones? How big do you envision your sphere of influence? Just how great is the best you? Does this aspirational thinking come natural to you? Are you generally more inclined to spend your energy kicking yourself for your character flaws and failings, accepting where you are now (the good and the bad), or envisioning your best self for the future? Write it out. Then leave me a response and let me know: Who do you wish to be? 

Shoot for the moon,

William

P.S. If this pushed you to think bigger about who you could become, please share it. Let’s challenge ourselves and encourage each other to rise to the occasion called Life!