Category Archives: Autobiographical

The Absolute Worst Time To Make A Big Life Decision…Or Not?

“Losing your head in a crisis is a good way to become the crisis.” –C.J. Redwine, Defiance

“Some beautiful paths can’t be discovered without getting lost.” –Erol Ozan

Hello friend,

I was talking with a friend last week—she’s about my age–and out of nowhere, she dropped this bomb on me: “I’ve come into a little bit of money, and I am thinking I might retire.” She said she would like to relax, travel, volunteer–all of that stuff that we all say we are going to do when we retire. You know: unstructured and unobligated living. The dream. Well, my dream anyway. To me, it sounds like everything I have always wanted: casual, fluid, free. The only problem: none of that sounds like her!

In other conversations, she has shared with me how difficult the first months of the pandemic were on her, as that was the time when she was not able to go into her work and have that structure, schedule, and task list that her tightly-wound personality requires. It was a mental health struggle to be without her job (not the income part). After reiterating that fundamental aspect of her personality to me numerous times in recent months, you can imagine my surprise the other day she when totally flipped the script with the announcement of a possible retirement. WHAT?!?!? I was flabbergasted. A reasonable guess would have been that she was clinging for dear life to the normalcy and regularity of her career in these wildly uncertain times. Nope! Just the opposite. After explaining herself, she at least showed her self-awareness by asserting that with all of the stressors that our whole society has been flooded with this year—coronavirus, George Floyd, Donald Trump, etc.—she probably has no business making any major Life decisions at this point.

That counterpoint flashed me back to last Autumn, a conversation I had with my niece. She is a freshman in college, and she was by that point a few months into it and feeling very unsure as to whether her chosen school was really the right place for her. Not sure about the people, the vibe of the campus, all of that stuff that is crucial at that transformative age that so many of us recall as a life-defining year on our journey of self-discovery. I remember saying to her, “This is going to come as no comfort to you, but I think you may not get to have an answer to that question this year. You may go through the whole school year isolated in your dorm room and at socially distanced meals, not going to the parties and club meetings and lecture halls that all of the other college freshmen in the history of college campuses have used to find their crowd and their niche. You may have to wait a whole year until you can start a “normal year,” using your second year of college to learn what everyone else in history has learned in their first year. But if it’s any consolation, all of the other freshmen in the world are stuck in this same Purgatory. How can you know if a place is right for you if you are not able to experience it as it usually is?” I’m sorry to say it, but you may just not get to decide anything big this year.”

I mentioned that conversation to my friend the other day when she was questioning the sanity of her sudden desire to retire. We both agreed that the crazy extremes of circumstances and emotions this year have left us feeling like our minds are on shaky ground and thus we ought to be suspicious of any major, Life-altering inclinations that flash through them. It has become difficult to trust our impulses, knowing that everything this year has been “unprecedented”—a word used more often this year than any other—and therefore “not normal.”

We have good reason to think that when we return to that normal—please tell me it is soon—that our inclinations and tastes will probably be more like they were before. Our current desires to overhaul our lives and the world around us will go from a boil to a simmer, maybe even to a cool. We will almost certainly go back to the same old, same old. Our minds and passions will go back on autopilot and cruise control. We will quickly shush those inner voices that suggest we shake it all up, whether that shake-up is a new job, a retirement, a new health care system, or a new way of policing our cities. Big ideas will be replaced by small ones again. Progress, if any, will be by baby steps again. You remember, the usual. These impulses—whether personal or societal–that have been allowed oxygen during these “unprecedented times” will crawl back under the rock they emerged from. If you just ignore them for a little while longer, you will get to that spot where you won’t have to be so suspicious of your inclinations. You will be safe and boring and uninspired again. We all will.

But should we ignore them?

What if the lockdowns resulting from the coronavirus pandemic made it crystal clear to you how little time you had actually been spending with your family and how important that time is, making you want to dramatically shift your schedule and perhaps your career path? What if the economic crisis made you aware of how thoroughly unfulfilling your luxury car or jewelry or fancy whatever is, making you want to sell off some things and simplify, giving more of your wealth to causes that you now see truly need it. What if the George Floyd and Breonna Taylor stories sparked a sudden realization of your privilege in this inequitable world, stirring up an activist streak in you that you had no idea existed? What if the Capitol insurrection of January 6^th and the exposure of the lies about the election fraud made you wake up to the reality of the damage your political beliefs have been doing in the real world for years, causing you to re-think not only your use of social media and usual news sources but also your political party? What if all of these cascading crises have actually made things not more fuzzy for you, but more clear? What if it took all of this to reveal your true values and priorities?

Maybe we haven’t had our foundation shaken but rather just had the artifice scraped off. Maybe it took all of this drama and uncertainty to make clear who we really are inside and what we want our lives to be truly about. Maybe all of these “out of nowhere” impulses to change ourselves and our world aren’t really so out of nowhere. Maybe they have been at our core, our foundation, the entire time, just covered up or blurred by all of the other superficial stuff that we thought we should be doing or the speed at which we’ve been going to try to keep up with all of our commitments. Isn’t there some quote–or at least a meme–about how life is not about finding yourself so much as it is about uncovering who you always were? Well, that is what I am getting at. It’s just so easy to get swept along by “normal life,” with all its busy-ness, and become numb to the signs from our soul about what is truly important to us and what resonates deep in our being. The panic of a global health scare, the guilt and grief of knowing a loved one is dying alone in a hospital, or the graphic video of one man calmly kneeling on another man’s neck as the life force slowly goes out of him—these things have the power to shake us to a different level and perhaps expose our Truths in a way that we can no longer deny. Trauma breeds uncertainty, no doubt, but maybe it also breeds clarity.

So, how do we tell which is which? How do we know if that newfound impulse to switch careers or run for City Council or lead a protest march or have a baby or get a divorce or buy a bookmobile or join the Peace Corps or get a dog–how do we know if these are the insecurity of a totally shaken core talking, and how do we know if they are a finally revealed core talking? Is there a different sound they make—a resonance—we can listen for to know if this is the thing to reject due to the extremity of the year rather than attend to because it is the revelation of our essence? How does one feel compared to the other?

Honestly, I don’t know. That is why I journal every day: to try to flesh it out. I fill up my pages with the rolling of ideas around in my head, taking them from different angles, ascertaining whether and how the impulse evolves over time, questioning my motivations and scouring my psyche for insecurities or unsatisfied longings. I attempt to look at myself in the mirror as clear-eyed as I possibly can, hoping to decipher which of these new impulses is an imposter out for a persuasive but fleeting flight of fancy, and which is my Truth revealing itself in a way that my eyes can finally see.

I think my friend is right to be suspicious of her motives for her recent, dramatic shift in outlook on her career. Not even necessarily the motives themselves—they should be mined for lessons for their own sake—but the sustainability of her motives. Will they keep when her job goes back to the normal that she loved for so many years? Maybe not. I am guessing most of our impulses and temptations from this year will not. Most, but not all. Truths have been revealed to us; I am sure of that. Whether or not we will do a good job of combing through the lot to dismiss the pretenders and find that priceless gem—or whether we even allow ourselves the courage to entertain the new ideas and inspirations at all—is a different matter. I happen believe in the power of those impulses; I think they are messages from our deeper levels. There is Magic in there. Sure, it must be sorted through, but true Magic is worth the labor. That is where the marrow of Life is. It is why, when my friend was verbally dismissing her retirement idea with, “Of course, now is the absolute worst time to be making any sort of meaningful Life decision,” I replied with, “Or maybe it’s the perfect time… .” Maybe. I am here to find out.

How about you? Do you trust yourself to make an important Life change at a time of multiple societal crises and a swirl of heavy emotions inside you? Open up your journal and try to get a sense of how steady your current grounding is to your True North? Generally speaking, how has your mental health been in recent months compared to other points in your life when things were more “normal”? How much more grief, anxiety, and sadness have you been dealing with this year? Have you found your mind feeling more foggy, your senses dulled, or your motivation lacking? Have you enjoyed things as much as you usually do, or are you one of the many experiencing anhedonia, the loss of the ability to feel pleasure? Do you like your job as well this year as you have in other years? Are you as engaged in your work and as fulfilled by your tasks? With all of that considered, how confident are you in your ability to make the wisest decisions on major Life issues this year (e.g. career or location change, family changes like having a child or getting a divorce)? How much more or less confident is that than you are in “normal” times—i.e., any time before 2020? Have you had to make some big decisions anyway, whether you wanted to or not? If so, how has it worked out so far? What fresh impulses or ideas have you had in the last year around bigger changes to your lifestyle? In what area have they popped up most frequently or strongly? Career path? Family life? Health of your lifestyle? Politics? Spirituality? Relationships? How have these inclinations and impulses been different than what you have felt in other, more stable times in your life? How do you interpret their meaning? Do you tend to take these new tastes or ideas seriously and follow through on them, or are you more skeptical of any big idea you have during these unprecedented times? Which new changes have you made? Which ideas did you disregard? Which ones will you keep on your radar until Life settles down a bit and returns to normalcy? What is the biggest, game-changing decision you have made in the last year? How has it worked out? Would you have made the same decision in normal times? Has all of this crisis, change, and chaos served to make your values and priorities more clear to you? How will this period change your Life in the long run? Will you be better for it, or will you carry the mental and emotional scars and be weighed down by them? If someone came to you now who has struggled emotionally through this period and announces a major Life-changing decision, would you caution them against making such a big move given the circumstances—essentially telling them to wait it out until it is easier to be clear-headed–or are you inclined to think that these times are good for clarifying priorities and are thus a great time to make a big change? Is your opinion on this different for yourself than it is for the general public? Leave me a reply and let me know: Is this age of cascading crises the absolute worst time to make a big Life decision, or is it the best?

Take care of yourself,

William

P.S. If today’s letter resonated with you, please share it. Together we can get through anything!

P.P.S. If this way of self-reflection suits you, consider buying my book, Journal Of YOU: Uncovering The Beauty That Is Your Truth, at your favorite online retailers. Namaste.

How Can You Make Your Home Reflect Your Soul?

“I live in my own little world. But it’s ok, they know me here.” —Lauren Myracle

“Home isn’t where you’re from, it’s where you find light when all grows dark.” –Pierce Brown, Golden Son

Hello friend,

Every year, I pledge to spend more time outdoors. In my quest to fine-tune everything about my life as I have aged, I have come to realize that being outside just hits all the right buttons for me. It calms me. It energizes me. It inspires me. Quite simply, it fills up my soul with all kinds of beautiful light. As I have become more aware of this magic, I have increasingly made these pledges to put myself out there more often, to find the fresh air and let it do its thing upon my spirit. I don’t have to do much—though I do love the action—but rather just be in it. Just be in “the room where it happens,” so to speak, though that magical room is no room at all. In fact, it is everything that a room is not: unbound, uncontained, limitless. For me, there is nothing better than to feel limitless.

So, I make myself promises and plans to get out more, to allow fewer excuses for staying inside. I do it in every season, even in the terribly long, dark, and cold Winters of Minnesota. Those are tough every year (though I did better this time around). I do it in our brief Autumn and Springtime, too, trying to squeeze every last little bit of warmth out of the season before Winter and then trying to make up for lost time by immediately pouncing on any early Spring day that offers a glimmer of Hope in the way of sunshine (or even just relatively little wind). I mine it for all it is worth.

But my season is Summer. I love the warm air filling up my lungs, the light breeze caressing my cheeks. I love the heat, and I love the shade. Summer does it all for me. So, of course, that is when I really crank up the demands regarding the fresh air. I want to be outside all day long! I feel pent-up if I am not. That fresh air is like a drug that I want more and more of.

Alas, living in this Land of 10,000 Bodies of Stagnant Water, my Summer outdoor hours have always been limited by my least favorites creatures in all of Creation: mosquitoes. I loathe mosquitoes. Earnestly, passionately loathe them. Aside from the buzzing, pestering nuisance in the moment, the disgusting smell of repellant, and the bites that make me itch nonstop for several days afterwards (and make my children swell up like fleshy melons on their skin)—each awful in its own right—it is their very direct role in keeping me indoors during my season that incites my greatest hatred. But it is more than hatred. It is resentment. I resent that they are keeping me from what my heart and mind know to be rightfully mine. I belong in that enchanting night air. It is my element. Each breath is like food to my soul. To be denied that has always felt disturbingly wrong to me at a cellular level. It is the one aspect of Summer that leaves me feeling contained, and my finicky soul cannot abide by that. I am not to be bound. My happiness depends upon it.

All these years, I have been vaguely aware of this but have felt helpless to do anything about it. I have placated myself by spending as much daylight time as possible outside. I have even gone from being a natural night owl to an early riser so I can be up and out in the early part of the day in order to capture more of it, thereby tiring myself out by the time darkness arrives so I can tell myself I am not missing much indoors. I guess that deep down, though, I have known all along. I still feel that longing for the cooling air of night, the sounds of the insects, the shine of the moon, and the faint glimmer of starlight high above suburbia. It has become clear that I will not feel completely at Peace and at home unless I can bridge that gap to carefree fresh air at any hour.

But how?

At my childhood home, we used to have a back deck on the second level with a shabby concrete patio underneath. In later years, my parents put some walls up and screened the large window spaces, making a three-season porch with a big hammock inside. I spent every Summer night reading and writing in that hammock, basking in the intoxicating nighttime air. It was glorious. I have longed for its equivalent ever since.

Well, a few decades later and ten years after living in my current house, I am finally about to get my wish. My wonderful, tenacious researcher of a wife, after begrudgingly submitting to the idea that she is stuck living in the cold of Minnesota until her kids are grown, has become determined to do Life in this house right. So, rather than hide inside from the mosquitoes with me and miss her beautiful Summer evenings, she found the one contractor who could screen in our entire deck–sides and roof–creating an outdoor living room. Fresh air, views of the night sky, all the sounds of nature, but without those evil mosquitoes hunting our blood when the sun begins to set. I had spotted a house with one of these screen rooms a few years ago and have been fantasizing about it ever since. I even asked the guy who owned it, but he had no information, and I didn’t think we would ever make the investment anyway, even if we could find someone to design and build it. But here we are, deep in discussion. The designs are done, and if all goes well with the weather gods and contractors and such, it will be built before the swarms of mosquitoes arrive for the season. Did I mention my wife is wonderful?

I daydream about it all the time now. I picture myself typing away on my laptop while lying on my hammock under the stars, listening to the crickets. I envision game nights by the fire table with family and friends. I see my wife and I sharing a quiet evening with our books and the fresh air. I imagine outdoor sleepovers with the kids under the full moon. Did I mention that there are no mosquitoes in any of these visions? Only Peace, Joy, and Freedom. Limitless.

This screen room fits me like a glove. I haven’t even been in it yet, but whenever I think about it, I feel the biggest grin spread all the way across my face. It is a contented grin, a satisfied one, like, “Yes, this hits the spot.” I laugh, as it reminds me of the sappy old line from Jerry Maguire: “You complete me.” Maybe it’s sad to say that about some aluminum posts and a bunch of screen, but hey, I feel it. It’s a game-changer in the way I feel about my home.

I am always looking for little things that I can insert into my daily existence that rub my soul the right way. I want not only the things that I do in Life to resonate with my heart and mind; I want the things I touch, the things I see, the spaces I occupy to hit me there, too. I know it when I feel it. I am talking about resonance: that which “rings true” to my very essence when its chord is struck. So I test things out, and when something feels like me—like me at Peace—I adopt it. I make it part of my home, part of my world. Part of me.

Obviously, it would be great to have an unlimited bank account so I could buy anything I want any time I felt that pull. After all, in my experience, luxury items tend to feel pretty darn good. Intoxicating, even. But that is not my financial reality. I have to operate within my realm, and I am pretty cheap by nature, anyway. So the screen room is a huge deal for me, budget-wise and Peace-wise. It is a game-changer—and I want to believe it is going to be worth it in the long run—but it is not the kind of soul booster I can treat myself to very often.

With that in mind, I seek out the little items and little ways make my space feel more homey to my whole being. I have hundreds of family photos on my walls; I enlarge the ones I especially love. I hang other Nature photos I have taken; they remind me of my favorite places and my joy in creating. I drink my tea and hot chocolate out of only a couple of mugs of a certain style that feels right in my hand and right to my eye; the same with my water cup. I only like to hold certain types of pens and pencils. I keep just the right configuration of pillows around my body in my bed. I like my towel to be a certain color and texture. When I get a say in paint color for rooms I will spend time in, I use that resonation test. I own multiple hammocks and an anti-gravity chair (and someday a plush recliner), so much do I prefer to recline rather than sitting upright. I have a certain spoon I use to eat my ice cream, nothing like the spoons I use the rest of the day. All of these selections are things that just feel right to me. In a way, I suppose they are my method of treating myself in almost every moment of the day. Not in a fancy way, but in a catered-to-my-soul’s-care way.

They are my idiosyncratic ways of making my space mine, and I am guessing that you couldn’t find another person with strong feelings about all of the same things that move the needle for me (an ice cream spoon?). Everyone has different things that their soul latches onto, different ways that bring Peace in through their senses. I can imagine people for whom it might be a spice organizer. A desk. Drapes of a certain color or fabric texture. A fitness room (or corner of a room). A meditation spot or religious shrine. Throw pillows. Floor-to-ceiling book shelves. Framed quotes. A compost bin. Great sheets. A fruit tree. Surround sound. Special light fixtures or cabinet pulls. Hardwood floors. Exposed brick. A double oven. A change of stain color on the trim. Glassware. A wet bar. A ping pong table. A certain blanket. House plants. A dressing table. A solid, sharp kitchen knife. Family heirlooms. The perfect chair. A reading nook. A workshop. On even the smallest of budgets, the options are truly endless.

I hope your space is filled top-to-bottom with things that make you feel the way my visions of the screen room are making me feel. Even though I said it will complete me, I have no doubt that I will keep searching for more, keep fine-tuning all of the spaces my life touches to make them simultaneously invigorate and calm me. Maybe by the time I have it all right, it will be time for me to retire to the beach (the right beach, of course, with the right lounge chair and the right towel, the right sunglasses)! Something tells me I will continue this soul quest until the day I die.

How about you? How can you make your living spaces resonate more with your soul? Open up your journal and take a walk through your home. Which parts of it feel the most homey to your senses? Do the staple items in your sleeping space—sheets, pillows, blankets, lighting, wall color, and art—make you want to snuggle right in every time you enter the room? Is your pillow special to you? Does your configuration of blankets and pillows feel like it is custom-tailored to your sleeping style, or is it pretty generic? What could you change to make it more welcoming and restful, more personal? How about in your bathroom? Does your toothbrush make you want to brush your teeth (mine does)? Do you have certain towels that make you feel specially cared for? Does your shower space—and the products in it—bring you Peace? Does the light feel right to you? Would a dimmer switch provide a level of control and variety that better suits your particular tastes and moods? Is there a certain level of cleanliness beyond which you become agitated? How well do you do at keeping it in the comfortable zone? Does your kitchen suit you? Are there specific dishes or utensils that are your favorites? Is there a specific small appliance that is a special treat for you (e.g. a blender, an espresso machine, a waffle iron)? Do you enjoy hanging out in your kitchen, whether for cooking or socializing? Are your cabinets and walls the right color for you? How about your family room or living room, wherever you are most likely to lounge and read or watch television? Do you have a special spot? What makes it yours? Do you nap there also? How does the texture of the furniture affect you? Is there another space in the house that you feel especially at home in (e.g. an office, a guest room, a workout or meditation space)? What makes that place soothing to your soul, beyond just what you do in there? Is it the seating? The color? The light? The décor? How about your outer spaces? Do you have a patio or deck? Are they happy places for you like they are for me? Do you have special lounge chairs or a hammock that are your jam? How about a fire pit or table? What could you add to make it more meaningful to you? Do you have a yard? If so, are you happy there? What is your favorite thing about your outside space? A certain tree or garden? The grass? The view? What connects it to your essence? In all of your home space, what is the biggest splurge item you have purchased just because it feels good to you each time you interact with it? What is the simplest thing that deeply resonates with you but that other people might not even notice or care about? Which colors give you the best feelings? How does light affect your experiences? Are textures important to you (e.g. sheets, towels, furniture, flooring, utensils, etc.)? Is there something specific that really stirs your soul (like my fresh air)? Does your home and the way your currently use give you enough of that special ingredient? How can you infuse more of your home life with it? If someone you care about visited your home for the first time, do you think they could feel your energy in its different spaces? Can you? Leave me a reply and let me know: How can you make your home touch more of your soul?

Live in Peace,

William

P.S. If today’s letter resonated with you, please share it. Let’s care for ourselves by being true to ourselves!

P.P.S. If this way of digging deep into your life to find out what makes you tick feels right to you, consider buying my book, Journal of YOU: Uncovering The Beauty That Is Your Truth, at your favorite online retailers.

A Lost Year: Reflections On My Coronavirus Anniversary

“Reality continues to ruin my life.” –Bill Watterson, The Complete Calvin and Hobbes

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” –J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Hello friend,

Last weekend, my daughter had her State Basketball Tournament. On our way home on Sunday afternoon, we got off the highway and were heading down the frontage road when she chimed in from the back seat: “Hey Dad, there’s the last restaurant we went to!” It took me a second to jar my memory, but finally it clicked in. She was right: there beside the road was the T.G.I.Fridays we had gone to with her teammates and their families on the day her State Tournament ended last year. The realization was a sobering one.

Last year.

With my daughter’s words, my mind was transported back to the first few weeks of March 2020. The quickly escalating tension and concern. The constant monitoring of the news for case updates and closures. The immediate fear of contracting the virus and losing loved ones. And what seemed like the worst at the time: the overwhelming sense of dread and inevitability as I watched the two biggest things occupying my mind head straight for each other like two runaway trains on the same track: my long-dreamt-about family beach vacation and the exponential spread of the coronavirus toward the point of national lockdown.

I remember how desperate I felt to get to that sunshine and warmth so I could immerse myself in the saltwater that always seems to make me whole again. I remember how irrational my thoughts became as the numbers rose to the point where it should have been obvious that the vacation was simply not going to happen. Things were beginning to shut down, and the dominoes kept falling. My son’s State Tournament, scheduled for the weekend after my daughter’s and just a couple days before our trip, was canceled. I begged the Universe for some loophole to appear that would allow us to go. I was willing things to be different, so obsessed was I with that vacation.

When I finally faced reality, I remember sitting on my bed, breaking the news to my kids. It was a heavy night in our house. They were so disappointed. We all were. It was terrible.

And that was only the beginning…

As we got deeper into March, a bizarre new way of life emerged at my house. School was shut down, only to be later restarted in a less-than-ideal way at home through devices. I scrounged for toilet paper, but otherwise we avoided stores, restaurants, and even our own jobs (which we were grateful to keep as others were losing theirs). It was a surreal new world to occupy, but the sacrifices made sense in order to quickly move out of the danger zone and back to our version of Normal.

From this view now, it seems odd that we imagined that the return to Normal would be quick. But we did.

One memory of those very early days that stands out in my mind is of watching a news show and hearing projections about the damage the novel coronavirus could cause if we—as regular citizens and our elected leaders–didn’t take the right steps early on in its days in America. I specifically remember them saying that it could potentially kill 70,000 people here. I thought, “NO WAY!!! That will NEVER happen! (But maybe the outlandish number will scare some people into behaving well for others in their communities.)” Seventy thousand. What a fantasy that sounds like now, as we recently blew by the half-a-million milestone and are still allowing 2,000 Americans to die every day from the virus, even as we continue to loosen our restrictions on gatherings and mask-wearing in many states. Oh, America…

After that crazy start, April arrived and seemed to stay for about 87 days. As an introvert, I felt like I had spent my whole life preparing for the forced isolation and quiet. It was just fine with me. At first, the “family time” and “break from organized activities” were relatively easy to sell to my kids. It grew less easy over time. They understood the seriousness of the virus and how each person’s behavior affected the entire community, so they accepted how disciplined my wife and I demanded us all to be. Still, seeing the unmasked neighbor kids wrestling in their yards with friends and other too-large neighborhood gatherings of adults made them wonder (justifiably) why other people got to cheat the rules. We can see now where all that cheating got us.

May was much like April—long and solitary—except that the warmer weather made getting out of the house for family walks and bike rides easier. We all appreciated the diversion. And outside, we could actually see other humans walking and riding as well, evidence that we were not alone on the planet, even if we couldn’t interact with them.

Summer is totally my season, and I had long been planning lots of adventures for my family for the 2020 Summer. We were going to take camping trips and many trips to the lake. To top it all off was to be a huge, cross-country roadtrip that included tons of sightseeing as well as visits with family and friends. The kids were the perfect age for it. It was to be one of those trips we would always talk about when we got together over the course of our lifetimes, forever family memories. NOPE! Canceled, canceled, canceled. Thanks to some family members committed to keeping safe, we were at least able to get to the lake to be with people we love. As I look back on the year, that time at the lake was the closest thing I have felt to Normal in the last twelve months. It was fantastic, and maybe something I will never take for granted again.

For my kids, other than their four-guest, outdoor birthday parties, if they wanted to spend time with friends, they had to stay on their bikes and talk while riding around the neighborhood. A far cry from the “just go out and play” days of the past. Childhood, interrupted.

Despite the rolling disappointment of the muted previous seasons, Autumn came around too soon, as it always does for me. Things like school and organized activities kind of halfway started, at least for some kids, including mine. It was like coming into the kitchen as a full batch of cookies is coming out of the oven but only being offered a single bite. Unsatisfying. But it was something. For the beggars we had all become over the previous several months, we clung to it desperately.

But then, of course, it ended. Schools and activities shut down again as cases and deaths skyrocketed. We were back to a fully muted life again, this time just more accustomed to it. Holidays that we have always celebrated heartily, like Halloween and Thanksgiving, came and went with just the four of us hanging out at home. The kids got lazy and addicted to screens in the absence of school and sports. We were determined to still get outdoors whenever we could, searching for energy and inspiration in a time when those were in short supply.

Winter continued the theme, as our lives seemed a bit frozen in time for a while as the virus kept us under its thumb. Slowly and tentatively, activities resumed. Eventually, games began to be played—fully masked and short of breath–and talk of a return to in-person schooling in some form. When school did resume recently, it was still the partial version. Half-schedules and no lockers for older kids, eating at your desk for the younger. There is no doubt the kids were glad to be back, but of course, it is not the same. Not as free. Not as fun. Just like everything else.

And now, here we are again in March. A full year into this COVID lifestyle and about to miss yet another Spring Break family beach vacation. I cannot think about this past year without shaking my head. It is involuntary. I cannot even begin to explain how deeply disappointed and frustrated I am with everything about this situation. The fact that we are a year out from the first deaths in this country and are still erasing 2,000 more people every day just makes me sick to my stomach. The fact that I have essentially lost a full year in my fleeting life feels thoroughly wasteful. I feel like I have been robbed. I’m sad about it. But I am also angry. I am sick and tired of shaking my head. At spineless or inept politicians failing their moral duties. At yet another milestone marker in cases or deaths. At people in the grocery store with their masks down below their noses. Or people going on vacation. Or going to bars and restaurants. Or refusing to get vaccinated. Or leaving the house when they are sick. Or complaining about how tough the guidelines and restrictions are when they aren’t even following them anyway. My neck is sore from all of the shaking, I swear.

Let me be clear: I am well aware that my family and I have been extremely blessed during the entire pandemic and over the course of this awful year. We have been healthy and connected: never got the virus and didn’t kill each other. We have had paychecks and food on the table. We are lucky, and I am deeply grateful for that. I have made the best of a best of a bad situation. And I can honestly say that I have been happy all year.

But not fulfilled. Not enjoying my work the way I normally would. Not getting all of my itches scratched for adventure, travel, laughter, and human connection. Not free. Basically, just not living my best life. Pandemic living is just so awfully dimmed and muted. I resent the dullness of it, how little there is to look forward to. It is so unlike glorious, regular Life.

That stinks. Because like I said, I am not getting any younger, and my years are flying by. I don’t have any extras to just throw away anymore. There is too much I want to do and feel, and too much I want to share with my kids while they are still kids.

So, I feel like I’ve been cheated this past year. Every day going forward from today in which it still feels unwise to travel and play and hug and look deeply into a friend’s eyes while we share our deepest thoughts, I will feel even more cheated. And not simply because there was a global pandemic. Bad things happen; I get that. Things don’t always go my way. So yeah, the coronavirus has been a bite in the butt. But I feel more cheated by my fellow countrymen. My neighbors and co-workers, my family and friends. And yes, my elected leaders. Collectively, we Americans have behaved horribly regarding COVID, completely failing the exam. Our federal policy was nonexistent (though I must say we did well in developing a vaccine quickly). Our state policies were not strong enough. But mostly, it was just the regular folks in our communities—our friends and neighbors–who were unwilling to sacrifice for one another. As my co-worker likes to say, ”They never should have told Americans that wearing a mask (and wearing it correctly) was to protect others. They should have led with, ‘The mask is only to save yourself.’” Other countries were amazing. There were plenty of examples to look to. The keys to beating the virus back were not secret. We just didn’t do it. And we are still, a year later, not doing it. That really makes me mad. Sad, too, because I hate to think so poorly of my country and my countrymen. But I do. Because we could have beaten this thing by now. We should have beaten this thing by now. It disgusts me that we haven’t. And that I am still counting. I am thoroughly disappointed. I have been that way all year long.

How about you? What are your strongest memories and takeaways from your year dealing with the coronavirus pandemic? Open up your journal and your heart, and wander back through the last twelve months in your mind. Go ahead, begin at the beginning. What was happening in your life in March of 2020 as things started to get real with the virus? What were the first things in your world to get disrupted? Which plans did you have to cancel? What was your level of fear and tension around the virus itself? How upset were you with the sudden changes in your lifestyle? Do you have a personality that flows well with change and chaos? Which aspects of “lockdown” living did you appreciate at the time? Did you miss your routine? Your loved ones? Stimulation? How was your job affected? In those early weeks of the lockdown, how long did you expect your life to be significantly disrupted by the virus? How many people would you have guessed would die in your country? Did those expectations of length and severity color the way you have viewed the pandemic the rest of the way? At what point in the year did you feel optimism about the possibility of the virus getting under control soon? Mid-Summer? Early Autumn? Ever? How disappointed are you in the way things have gone? What would you say is your distribution of disappointment, anger, frustration, umbrage, fear, and sadness? How wildly does that distribution vary from day to day? At whom do you direct the bulk of your ire regarding the duration and depth of this fiasco? Elected officials? God/the Universe? Regular folks not following the basic safety rules? Does your answer vary from day to day on that one as well? When I look back now over this letter to you and how I have described life in the last year, I see words like muted, disappointed, desperate, bizarre, dimmed, wasteful, sick-and-tired, frozen in time, tentative, slow, quiet, solitary, halfway, sad, and surreal. What adjectives come to your mind when you think about your lifestyle of the past year? Ten or twenty years from now, how do you think you will look back on this time? Will this have been the worst year of your life? Where are you with it right now? Does the presence of the vaccine, even if you haven’t received it yet, make you more impatient about getting back to the life you once had? What are the things you will try to keep from this COVID lifestyle? If you could give some advice to the person you were one year ago about how to make the best of the year that would come, what would you say? If you are like me and mostly feel like you have been robbed of a year on Earth, what will you do differently when we finally emerge from the pandemic to either make up for lost time or just make the best use of the time you have left? What is the most important lesson you have learned? Leave me a reply and let me know: What will you take away from your year with the coronavirus?

Onward and upward,

William

P.S. If this letter resonated with you today, please share it with your community. We must learn in order to grow!

P.P.S. If you like to examine your life both broadly and deeply, consider purchasing my book, Journal Of YOU: Uncovering The Beauty That Is Your Truth, at your favorite online retailers. Namaste.

What Is Your Vision of Retirement?

Hello friend,

“Retirement is a blank sheet of paper. It is a chance to redesign your life into something new and different.” –Patrick Foley, Winning At Retirement

“Don’t simply retire from something; have something to retire to.” –Harry Emerson Fosdick

I have been a very jealous man lately. What is that commandment: Thou shall not covet your neighbor’s goods? Maybe I haven’t been coveting his goods, per se, but I have definitely been jealous of his new life for the last month. This youngish guy who lives on my street just retired, and I cannot seem to wrap my mind around it. Or maybe I can, but it just annoys me to process it because I become so wild with jealousy. Either way, for the very first time in my life, this guy has me pondering what the whole idea of retirement means to me.

For reasons I cannot explain, I have always had the feeling that I would die young. I don’t have a death wish, and I don’t claim to see the future or know how I will go, but I have just always thought I would not be here for long. And since I have never expected to live into old age, it makes sense that the thought of retirement just never occurred to me. So, whenever I heard stories of someone retiring or asked retired people about how they fill their time, other than being jealous that they no longer have to work, I guess I just never inserted myself into the scene in my imagination. It wasn’t in the cards for me, so why bother?

Then last month, my neighbor guy retired. And this guy is young! Not like 30 young, but young to retire. Early fifties. Worked for the city. Great pension. Done. Anyway, his retirement has my head spinning. Because even though I didn’t do his job for 30 years and I don’t have a pension and many other important facts that make our lives quite different, the fact that he is not much older than I am AND that he is retired has me wondering if I might actually do that some day. It is a wild thought, too. Like a whole new quadrant of my brain just opened up for business. Now, because of course my brain leaves no topic unscoured once it arrives in there, I simply must figure out exactly what my retirement would look like.

I feel like the usual question people ask is, Where are you going to retire? As though the location is the most important thing. And it seems like the main answers that are deemed acceptable are 1) Right here where I’ve always lived; 2) Where the grandkids are; 3) Arizona; or 4) Florida. But is that it? Are those the options? And is that even the right question to start with? Maybe it should be, How do you want to spend your time? Once you figure out your activities and interests, then the location could follow. Maybe the activities and location are so intertwined that asking one assumes you will take the other into account. Hey, like I said, I have never thought about this stuff before; I am trying to get all the settings right before I dive in!

I think it’s probably unwise to use my early 50s neighbor as my example, though, because that is fantasyland (sort of like, “If you won the lottery at age 50….”). If I retired in the next five years, I would want to head for the mountains and spend so much time hiking long miles and sleeping in a tent. I don’t think that is going to be as realistic if my retirement comes 20 years from now. Maybe the only thing similar in my visions of a 55-year-old retirement and a 70-year-old retirement is time spent on the beach. No matter my age, I will most definitely want to spend lots of time by the water and in warm weather. I have been stuck in frigid Northern states for most of my life, and I truly do not want to be here any longer than necessary. I am here now because this is the life I set up for my kids, and they don’t want to leave it. But I can guarantee you that if I live to see retirement, I will see it through sunglasses sitting by the pool or the ocean.

I would love to travel. Jetting around the world and immersing myself in different cultures would be fantastic, but I think I would also be content to crisscross America on long roadtrips. A different retired neighbor of mine bought a camper and a truck to tow it with. That sounds to me like a fun way to pass the golden years, too. There is enough beauty and variety on this continent to keep me fully engaged in a life dedicated to exploration and adventure.

I hope I spend my time still creating and learning. If I haven’t gotten to it by that point, I believe I will still want to learn a few musical instruments and will set myself up with lessons from a real teacher the same way I send my kids to piano lessons now. I see myself taking photography seminars and trying new lenses and techniques and such. I hope I am still writing and thinking of ways my words might help someone. Maybe I will join the local theatre troupe. I can definitely imagine myself trying a painting workshop, a SCUBA course, or whatever else they are offering in the Community Education brochure. I hope that kind of stuff always excites me.

As I think of this, it strikes me how the whole thing about retirement visions is dependent upon one’s finances. It would be easy to get into this exercise and say, “I’ll have a house on the beach in Florida for Winter, a log cabin in the mountains for Summer, and maybe a condo downtown in the city where my kids live. I will travel the world. I’ll spoil my grandkids. I’ll collect boats. And so much more!” But who suddenly becomes rich when they retire? You may have more time—which sounds absolutely wonderful to me—but not more money. So I keep cautioning myself not to make this the same answer I would give if you asked me what I would do if I won the lottery. Social Security is not a Powerball ticket. I am trying to be reasonable about what I would do with the time, not so much the money.

And then there’s that weird unknown about how healthy and energetic I imagine I will be at that age. Because believe me, I have had plenty of fantasies already about not working, envisioning my wife one day coming home and announcing, “I got a fat raise! I now make enough money so you don’t have to contribute financially. Go ahead and quit your job!” In this fantasy, we are not necessarily millionaires, but just wealthy enough that we don’t need two incomes. The hitch is that I am always my current age and health in these fantasies. I am never old and worn out.

So, I don’t know if, in this current exercise, I am setting the bar too high for retirement. Will I be healthy enough to travel and adventure? Will I be energetic enough to take on new challenges and keep looking to grow my mind and my skillset? Will my fixed income allow for big trips and cool classes, or will I have to settle for walks around my local parks and YouTube guitar lessons? I get that the nature of the Future is that it is unknown, but I am trying to make this exercise worthwhile and reasonably accurate.

I can do without the multiple homes and luxuries if you tell me I am going to be healthy, curious, creative, and not freezing all Winter long. And have all of that glorious TIME! That is what I really want. It is what I want now and what I have always cherished: just unscheduled time to fill with whatever I want. With as many interests as I have and as many things that I am dying to learn about and try, I am not a man who has ever been bored. When I hear a guy like my newly-retired neighbor talking about getting a job “not for the money but just to keep busy,” my mind nearly explodes. If you put me in a thousand parallel universes with all different circumstances, I cannot imagine ever saying something like that. I think of all the things people fill their free time with today—television, video games, social media—you could offer me immediate retirement in exchange for taking all of that stuff away from me, and I would shake on that deal in an instant. I promise you I would be happy as a clam and not pass a bored day for the rest of my life.

That is why I long for retirement so much when I finally stop to consider it. That is why I covet my neighbor’s new life. Enough money to live on and no one with a claim on my time: that is truly a dream to me. I can hardly wait!

How about you? How do you imagine your retirement life? Open up your journal and your imagination. What do you see for yourself when your working days are done? Is it your first inclination to picture where you want to be, what you want to be doing, or who you want to be with? Let’s start with the location. Where do you think you will live when you are retired? The same place you call home now? Somewhere you once visited? Someplace warm, like Florida or Arizona? No matter where you envision, do you imagine you will travel a lot when you retire? More or less than you travel now? Will you go farther away than you go now? Who do you see yourself spending your time with when you retire? Your partner? Your kids and grandkids? Old friends? Do you see yourself making many new friends and spending the time with them? Would it bother you if you spent most of it alone? Will you be more or less social when you retire? What other ways do you imagine yourself changing at that stage of Life? Will you be more or less open-minded? More or less adventurous? More or less candid and honest? Curious? Political? Focused on your legacy? Do you think you will still have ambitions? How will you fill up your days and years without a job to dominate your calendar? Will you join groups or leagues? Go out for lunches or dinners? Take up some new hobbies or rekindle some old ones? Read? Nap? Sit by the pool or the beach? Travel? Volunteer? How content do you think you will be with those activities? Will the fulfillment of your career be hard to replace? Will you be bored? Make an attempt to answer all of these questions from two perspectives: 1) Realistically: from where you actually believe you will be, and 2) Fantastically: from where you would ideally like to be. How widely do those perspectives differ for you? Is there something you can do to close the gap between now and then? Do you imagine that you will be happy in either scenario? How often do you daydream about your retirement? Is it usually the Reality version or the Fantasy version? Leave me a reply and let me know: What is your vision for your retirement years?

Make your whole life beautiful,

William

P.S. If today’s letter resonated with you, please share it with your community. Let us build lives that are worthy of appreciation and reward.

P.P.S. If this way or examining your life and your values appeals to you, consider buying my book, Journal Of YOU: Uncovering The Beauty That Is Your Truth, at your favorite online retailers. Namaste.

Dear Mr. President: A Note To The New Guy In The White House

“Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends–honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism–these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths.” –Barack Obama

“The people of the United States are one of the people I most admire in the world. The only thing I don’t understand is why a country that manages to do so well cannot do better in choosing its president.” –Gabriel García Márquez

Hello friend,

I suppose every writer shares the compulsion to have their voice heard. We feel we have something important to say, something that needs an audience. Sometimes that is an audience of one. I love letters. That is probably no surprise to you, but it is so true. I like the format. There is a carefully selected audience who is both greeted and bid farewell. It is understood that what falls in between those salutations is quite intentionally stated. The writer means it. It is thoughtful, unlike the mind(less) vomit that fills so many social media feeds. I know it is not as fast as a Tweet or a text, but it means a million times more. At least, that’s how I think of the letter. I have one friend who still writes me real emails—letters—occasionally, and it fills me with all the best feelings every time. I love her for it, and I love investing all my heart and soul into the response. The relationship feels intentional. That is everything to me.

By some strange twist of Fate, I have not become the global icon I dreamed of becoming when I was a kid. I lack the status and connections I imagined I might have by this point in my life. Somehow, that harsh reality has not deterred my ambition to secure the occasional audience with the big shots. I simply have these exchanges in my imagination instead. Musicians. Educators. Film directors. Writers. Scientists. Activists. Yogis. Healers. And yes, even politicians. (Okay, maybe especially politicians.)

Four years ago at this time, in a letter to you, I ruminated on the new President and the direction things seemed to be headed. I was definitely concerned. Several months later, still in President Trump’s first year in office, I wrote him an open letter to share my by-then-heightened concerns on his presidency. I am sure we all had strong opinions on the matter, as the presidency suddenly seemed to consume all of the airspace and hover over us every day. I wanted to be clear—to me and to him–where I stood.

Now that we have a new President, it seems only right to give him a piece of my mind, too. While in the literal sense, every moment is an unprecedented one–no two moments have ever been exactly the same—I think we can all agree that, in our lifetimes anyway, there has not been another era of political drama and intrigue quite like the one we are in right now. “Unprecedented” doesn’t feel even remotely exaggerated. The country could go a number of different ways from here. And though I have no doubt that President Biden has many wise and experienced advisors, it wouldn’t hurt to hear from one of his constituents. I don’t know anyone more opinionated than me, so why not? This is what I have to say:

Dear Mr. President,

Just be decent. You know: sane, kindhearted, generous, thoughtful, altruistic, inclusive, wise, optimistic, empathetic, patriotic, gracious, and just. Just be a decent human and care about us for four years. That’s it.

No. Sorry, that’s not it; that doesn’t do it. But honestly, that is my first impulse, Mr. President. That’s what jumps to my mind when I think about what I want you to do right now. I know, I know, that’s not enough, and that would be shortchanging your potential for greatness—not to mention that I am WAY more demanding than that—but I also don’t want to downplay what some solid Goodness could do to salve the wounds in the soul of our beloved country right now. I think you know that, so I won’t spend too much more time on it. Or maybe I will. Anyway, PLEASE be that soothing grandfather that the country is silently begging for. That may be the most important thing I can ask at the moment.

But it’s not all. As much as I need you to simply BE good, I am going to need you to DO good, too. Thanks to the voters of Georgia, your party controls the Congress as well and thus has the ability to do big things, to make major structural changes in a country desperately in need of them. If you fail to seize this opportunity and merely be a decent, gracious man, I will be as disappointed in you as I have been in most of your predecessors. Perhaps more so.

What do I need you to do? Let’s start with climate change and environmental issues. It was a nice symbolic gesture that you rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement on your first day, but I need to see some aggressive legislation and investment that will both create lots of new jobs and decrease our greenhouse gas emissions. Similarly, after the last administration, you have a lot of catching up to do to restore credibility to the Environmental Protection Agency and to secure our public lands. I understand that climate change is a global issue and that one country’s efforts can be nullified by the negligence of other countries, but there is no excuse for America to fail to be a leader in this urgent matter. And even though this is not the most exciting topic for the majority of the electorate, this could ultimately be your most important legacy. Fortune favors the bold. I expect you to rise to the occasion.

Obviously, the coronavirus and its accompanying financial crisis are the issues slamming you in the face right now, and they will require the combination of bold proposals, wise judgment, and nimble adjustments to the fluid situations. I encourage you to go the exact opposite way of your predecessor: embrace the science, tell us the truth, take responsibility for federal government-managed testing and tracing, provide ample funds to local and state governments so they can perform their roles, and provide enough human and financial resources to make the logistics of mass vaccination as efficient as possible. I am past relying on my fellow citizens to do the right thing with masks and social distancing; I need you to get the vaccination in our arms and save us all, including those unwilling to do right by their communities. I am less certain of all the right moves you should make on the financial side of the crisis. I know the checks-for-everyone is kind of an easy, popular band-aid, but my main concern is targeting the people who have been hardest hit by the pandemic. I want you to do all you can for small businesses, for the people who have lost their jobs (and the health care tied to those jobs), and for those in danger of being evicted. As a nation, we have already failed this crisis quite miserably. The best thing you can do is get us out of the woods quickly and land us on our feet. Be the janitor and clean up our mess.

I need you to address and constantly re-address issues of equity and racial justice. This is one that you simply cannot back away from. I am pleased so far with your willingness to speak phrases like “White supremacy” and “Black lives matter.” I have been impressed with the diversity of your Cabinet nominees and advisers. But it is high time we dig in with some policymaking. Voting rights. Prison reform. Investment in infrastructure, green space, and schools in areas inhabited by people of color. Loans for entrepreneurs, small businesses, and first-time homebuyers. Tuition reimbursements. Anti-bias and curriculum reform in schools. Building a pipeline for teachers of color. Pathways to citizenship. Food justice. And on and on and on…. Get to work!

Health care. I know you didn’t campaign on a universal healthcare/Medicare-for-all platform, so I am not holding my breath here. But hey, this is my letter, so here goes. I really want you to start talking about health care as a right and begin to explain to America in good old “Joe from Scranton” language how much better our overall quality of life would be if we could all count on cradle-to-grave care in the same way we count on public schools, parks, and roads. Perhaps in your push to move the age for Medicare down to 60, you will see that the logic of your argument extends to any age. It is an embarrassment that America does not provide health care to all of its citizens. And let’s not pretend that it doesn’t affect poor people and people of color disproportionally. Even if you don’t get us all the way there, please move us in the direction of EVERY OTHER WEALTHY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD (you know, those countries that, no matter how hard they were hit by the coronavirus pandemic, not one of their citizens lost health care coverage). Bend that arc, Mr. President. I beg you.

I could go on and on with issues small and large that I want you to act on. Statehood for Puerto Rico and Washington, DC. The Supreme Court. Gun control. The filibuster. Homelessness. Campaign financing. The Electoral College. Term limits. I have strong opinions on just about everything. But which ones you choose to take on and in whichever order you choose, I hope you will do it with the utmost class and grace. Whether you are fulfilling all of my wildest policy dreams or falling short (as all of your predecessors have so far), I ask that Decency be one of your trademarks. Be the kind of leader I would like my children to look up to. We need that right now. We need you.

I’ll be honest with you, Mr. President. You weren’t my first choice in the Democratic primaries. You were pretty far down my list, frankly. Though you seem like a nice guy, your record is much too centrist for my liberal tastes. But I will tell you something: I have come to believe you are the right person for this moment. I think you have it in you to be the leader we need right now. I believed you when you said, in your inauguration speech, that your soul is in it. I sure hope so. We need every ounce of Goodness that you have. At any rate, I will be cheering for you, understanding that your success is our country’s success.

Godspeed,

William

How about you? What would you like to say to the new President? Open up your journal and unload your thoughts. Is it comfortable to you to write in the letter format? Does it feel weird to write a letter you aren’t formally sending? Does it free you up to say things you might not otherwise dare to? I hope you put it all out there for this one. My guess is that your letter will look a lot different than mine. But how? Is your letter more confrontational? What specific issues would you like to challenge the President about on his way into office? Things he has stood for in the past or campaigned on? Things you assume he is planning to change from the last President? What about the other side: what specific issues do you want to encourage him to take up? Which of the handful of crises that America is dealing with right now—pandemic, economy, racial justice, climate change, etc.—would you like the new administration to prioritize? Do you believe the President has any choice but to tackle them all simultaneously? What things would be a waste of his time and energy? Would you share in your letter some personal stories of you or your loved ones and how his upcoming presidency could impact you? Would you like to address his character and the example he can set for children, particularly in light of the last President? How much of what you would say is driven by whether you voted for him or not? Do you have a different list of demands depending upon which party the President belongs to? How can your words help him? If you are mostly angry about his arrival in the presidency, how can you find words that are both a release for you but also helpful to him? Do you think there is anything you could say to bring about a positive change? I dare you to try! Leave me a reply and let me know: What would you like to say to the new President?

Lift your voice,

William

P.S. If this letter resonated with you, please share it with your community. Let us empower one another to speak and be heard!

P.P.S. If this way of reflection appeals to your sensibilities, consider buying my book, Journal Of YOU: Uncovering The Beauty That Is Your Truth, at your favorite online retailers. Namaste.

Shackles Or The Meaning Of Life: How Do You View Your Responsibilities?

“Nothing shapes your life more than the commitments you choose to make.” –Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Life

“Commitment…something which is loved and hated in equal measure.” –Kiran Joshi

Hello friend,

I have been the bad guy at my house lately. Fun-killer. Mean Dad. Wet blanket. All of that stuff. Me.

You see, my wife really wants a dog. She spends her free time researching the countless different designer breeds and pulls up pictures of each one to share with my kids so they can all “OOH” and “AHH” together. Because of course the kids want a dog, too. What kid doesn’t? My wife knows this and plays the situation like a maestro. It gets mentioned in any interaction with family or friends. More inquiries are made. More photos. “OOH!” “AHH!”

I, meanwhile, have not budged from my position. I do not want a dog. Don’t get me wrong: I like dogs. I really do. I love their energy, their loyalty, their playfulness, their goodness. I grew up with dogs and loved all of them. I see how much other people love their dogs, too, how much they are truly a part of the family. I understand their value. And honestly, I know I would be best pals with a dog if I had one.

But, I don’t want one. I never have, in all of my adult life. It boils down to one thing: RESPONSIBILITY.

Perhaps a brief, adulthood-only autobiography would make this stance easier to understand about me. In my twenties, I didn’t spend a single day wanting to be married, wanting to have kids, or wanting a pet. I was deep into my personal development and cultivating ideas to make the world a better place to live. I had no interest in being “tied down,” even though I was in love the last few years of that decade. When I hit 30, I finally surrendered to the idea of being a husband and father. The decision didn’t come easily, as I was so deeply happy and at peace without the long-term commitments and responsibilities that I questioned the wisdom of trading that for the more conventional life that everyone else seemed to go in for. I wondered if I was just not wired for it—full disclosure: I still have that wonder way down underneath it all–and would at some point crack in the face of all that obligation and selflessness. Still, I made the choice to dive in, knowing that it was not just marriage that I was signing up for but marriage with children. Two, not more. I had accepted a cat into the deal before the kids came along. When he died when they were young, I decided he was easy enough to care for that getting a replacement was okay. But that’s it. No more. No more kids, no more animals, no more spouses. With all of them plus a home to take care of, that was my absolute limit. I needed some room for myself, too.

Now, with the cat 13 and the kids 12 and 10, I am still walking that tightrope. I am all-in on the husband and fatherhood deal, but I have also carved out enough space to still feel like a unique human being instead of being swallowed whole by my responsibilities. However, I am also well-aware of the daily sacrifices of the personal, soul-feeding stuff I would otherwise like to do and had done before this chapter in my life began. Even with that awareness, I can say concretely that I have made a good bargain in adding these guys to my world, and I wouldn’t trade them for anything. I love my life and appreciate the choices I have made, the responsibilities I have taken on. I am the family man.

Enter the dog proposition.

I understand that it probably seems like the logical next step. I have the house and the yard. My wife can help. The kids are theoretically at an age where they can feed it, walk it, and scoop the poop. And dogs are cool. It sounds like a slam dunk.

And yet, everything in my independent soul is screaming, “NO WAY!” It stresses me just to think about it. I picture that cute little guy and think, “Sorry buddy, it’s not you. It’s me.” Because it is. It’s totally me.

I simply don’t want any more responsibilities. Well, at least not of the large and long-term variety. I want to be a wonderful, totally devoted father who spends as much time with his kids as they allow, all the way until they grow up and move away. I want to be good to my cat (who, of course I know, is much less demanding than a dog). I want to be a devoted husband. I want to keep my home maintained, the bills paid, and my family doted upon. I want to be great in all those roles. But then I don’t want any other roles. I don’t want to be the guy anybody else counts on for any daily—or even weekly—needs. Quite simply, I would rather give that time and energy to myself.

That sounds really selfish as I write it, giving me a twinge of guilt and making me wonder if I have somehow taken a wrong turn from my basic humanity. But the pause is brief, the guilt fleeting. Through journal entries and endless hours of pondering over the course of a lifetime, I know who I am and what works for my energy supply. I am clear about my needs, and all of my senses are fine-tuned to detect when things become even slightly off-balance.

I have a serious thing with BOUNDARIES. If I meet someone whose energies do not match up with mine—I don’t even have to know exactly why; I go with the feeling—I do not allow them any room in my world. Similarly, I fiercely protect my time. If I am told going into a job that I am required to be there exactly these days at these times, I am a loyal and committed soldier. But the moment they start saying, “No, we actually need you to come in more often and at different times than we agreed to,” my loyalty and enthusiasm go right out the window. Don’t mess with my time. Every single minute of it is precious to me.

I can see that this fierce guardianship of my time and energy is behind my unwillingness to add more deep, long-term responsibilities in the form of offspring or pets or spouses [I know it is not exactly the same line of thinking—because believe me, my wife does not need me to take care of her–but I would lump a spouse in with kids and pets here. If my wife finds some trick to be rid of me along the way, I cannot imagine myself wanting to get married or otherwise legally bound to someone again. I will happily take this commitment to the end, but then I’m good.]. I know that there are still things I want to do in my life. There are places I want to travel, things I want to write, and solitude I want to bask in. These are daydreams that don’t involve responsibilities and obligations to others. I don’t want to have to worry about finding places where my dog can stay in the room or campsite with me, or all of the logistical adjustments I have to make in order to travel with kids. And I don’t want to feel the guilt about leaving the dog or the kids with other people and both missing out on what they are doing and hating that they are missing out on the memories I am making without them. I don’t want any of that baggage. I want some freedom. Freedom while I am still young enough to enjoy it and make something out of it.

I think about all of the childless-by-choice adults and the way people tend to think about them. We like to think they are selfish or, at the least, just not wise enough to understand what they are missing out on. They don’t get it. Unlike those of us who have chosen to be parents, these self-centered hedonists can’t wrap their minds around the magical equation that, despite all of the diapers, tantrums, sleep-deprivation, financial drain, time drain, headaches, heartaches, and stress that children bring (in a single day even, but also all through life), despite all of that, kids still somehow come out on the plus side of Life’s ledger and make every day with them worthwhile. If only these egotists could understand that, they would do the right thing and procreate, like us. After judging them, we come to feel bad for them, sentenced as they are to a life of relative emptiness. I think dog owners carry some of that sentiment for those of too short-sighted to get a dog or too uncommitted and therefore settle upon a love-withholding feline. I understand where they are coming from; there is no love and loyalty quite like a dog’s for its owner. We should want that for others, right?

This is why I have to fight off the internal nudge to feel bad about myself for not wanting a dog (or, at one point, more kids). Not because I don’t know how much more rich and rewarding life can be through our relationships with those we take responsibility for, but because I do.

I think it speaks to the strength of my boundaries and the strength of my conviction about what is truly essential for my unique journey through Life. I know not only some of the things I want to do, but perhaps more importantly, I know how I want to feel.

I want to feel free. Unburdened. Unencumbered. Unfettered. Unchecked. Unbound. Free.

Not now. Now I want this deep dive into my kids’ world and all of the magic and fulfillment that complete investment in others’ lives brings. But later on, when that passes, then I want the unburdening, the liberation from responsibility, and a re-investment in my own life and the part of my path that meanders away from the others.

After the blessings of this golden age of parenthood move on, I will be eager to get back to my old priorities from my twenties—self-improvement work in the physical, emotional, and spiritual realms—as well as the many new ventures and adventures I have been dreaming of in these last many years of responsibility. I want to travel more, and more spontaneously. I want to read and write more. I want my “free time” to actually be free. It is not that I want to abandon people (and pets) altogether—though I have my moments—but rather just the responsibility for them.

I like the idea of having a few distinct stages of my life’s journey, with different governing philosophies for each. I understand that it is all one flow, but I appreciate that the map of my journey shows clear forks in the road, with my chosen path obvious from the historical record, but with the paths untaken also clear from what I consciously gave up to follow the ones taken. I hope it continues that way. All lives can look that way if examined closely enough, but this one is mine, and because I have journaled all the way through it, I have been keenly aware of its contours as I have co-created them with the Universe. I love to read, listen to, or watch a good life story. There is nothing more fascinating or entertaining to me. I hope that if I keep my priorities and my boundaries tight and clear, that my story will someday be one that I enjoy watching in the rearview mirror. I hope that I will have loved and cared for others long enough and deep enough in my “responsibility years” that I will have no regrets about staking such a firm claim upon my “freedom years.” From this position midway through, I would say it all looks pretty darn beautiful.

How about you? How do you see the responsibilities and commitments you have taken on in life? Open up your journal and be honest with yourself. What feelings arise when you think about the characters (both human and animal) that you claimed responsibility for in this world? Whether you are in the midst of your biggest commitments (e.g. to young children, to employees, to dogs) or are looking back on them, what is your range of feelings? How much love do they fill you with? How much pride? Do they inspire you to be better and uplift you in your darker moments? How much humor do they provide you with? Have you found a certain freedom within those responsibilities (I think of the Indigo Girls line from Power of Two: “The closer I’m bound in love to you, the closer I am to free.”)? Do your responsibilities provide the foundation for your life, an emotional home base? In the end, are the people you are or have been responsible for the true meaning of life? What would your life be like without those you are responsible for? On the other end of the emotional spectrum, how heavy is the weight of your responsibility? How much stress do your obligations bring you? To what degree do they dictate your happiness and overall well-being? Does that seem healthy to you? How often do you feel hints (or torrents) of bitterness or resentment toward those you are responsible for because of the weight of that responsibility? Is the resentment fleeting or lasting? Do you ever wish you had not made these enormous commitments? What do you do with that feeling? How much different is a spouse/life partner relationship than that of children and pets when it comes to providing meaning to a life? What does having one another’s back mean compared to being truly responsible for another’s well-being? Is it the difference of being responsible to and responsible for? Which type of responsibility suits your personality better? Are you able to see your life in specific chapters or seasons, defined in large part by your responsibilities at the time? Do they tend to be good and bad in different ways but hard to evaluate overall in terms of what you liked better or what you would prefer to happen in your upcoming chapters, or is it very clear to you that your next chapter(s) should be defined one way or the other? Will you steer your next chapter toward or away from responsibility and commitments to others? If you want to spend more time and energy on yourself, do you feel any guilt about that? Are you satisfied with how much you have done for others in your lifetime? Would you choose the same commitments again if you had a chance to live it all over again? Would you go with more or fewer? What is the best thing you can do for yourself going forward? How do you wish to feel in your next chapter? How is that different than the other eras of your adulthood? What will you carry with you from your current obligations? Leave me a reply and let me know: How do you view your responsibilities?

Make it All beautiful,

William

P.S. If this one resonated with you, please share it with your community. We are One!

P.P.S. If this combination of introspection and storytelling appeals to you, consider buying my book, Journal of YOU: Uncovering The Beauty That Is Your Truth, at your favorite online retailers. Namaste.

Thanks, 2020! Personal Firsts, Bests, & Discoveries From A Year Like No Other

“Life is about accepting the challenges along the way, choosing to keep moving forward, and savoring the journey.” –Roy T. Bennett, A Light In The Heart

“The only way that we can live, is if we grow. The only way that we can grow is if we change. The only way that we can change is if we learn. The only way we can learn is if we are exposed. And the only way that we can become exposed is if we throw ourselves out into the open. Do it. Throw yourself.” –C. JoyBell C.

Hello friend,

I felt like a 90-year-old who couldn’t figure out how to get the remote control to play the movie. I was on the phone with the Apple guy, stressed out and flummoxed, trying to learn how I could get my CDs to play in the new laptop I was considering buying. “Why in the world wouldn’t it come with a disc drive? How will I load all of my CDs into iTunes? How will I burn the next album I rent from the library? Surely I’m not alone here, am I, young genius person? How else will I listen to my precious music????” “Umm, well sir, you could just stream it.” “Pay for music? No way! No….well, how would that work?”

Suspicious but intrigued by this sorcery he was explaining, I hung up the phone and called a couple of my friends who actually live in the modern world. When one told me that he subscribes to Spotify Premium, I asked him how he plays all of his CDs that were the soundtrack of our many cross-country roadtrips a few decades ago (you know, when CDs were the newest, coolest technology). “I sold them all on eBay,” he said, crushing my soul in one sentence. How could you just dispose of those priceless archives of your life??? So, I called my other modern-yet-more-nostalgic friend. She guided me through my fears, starting with a cost analysis: the cost of Apple Music for a month is the same as the cost of one CD. But how do I get new albums when they are released? I still need to buy them, right? “They’re free. They just show up on the release date.” I didn’t believe her. “Okay, name me a new album you would want?” Indigo Girls: Look Long. She looked it up: “Yep, it’s there. I can listen to it right now if I want. And anything else I want. Anything.”

I was like a living, breathing version of the “Mind Blown” emoji. I was stupefied by this new reality. No CDs? My whole world felt like it was coming apart. But that stupor only lasted for a few minutes, the part when I was intellectualizing it all, thinking through plan options and credit card numbers. After that, when I actually activated the free trial, well, then my whole world felt like it was opening up. Wide! All of this blessed inspiration was suddenly right at my fingertips. I couldn’t get it in my ears fast enough. Before the day was over, I had created several new playlists and downloaded hundreds of albums. I was the proverbial kid in a candy store. Honestly, as someone who is absolutely nutty about music, it felt like the discovery of a lifetime. I was in Heaven! Just so cool.

That day, lying on that hammock with my headphones on and my devices all aglow, with that music filling up my entire soul, was a total game-changer. It was mid-2020—the height of the coronavirus pandemic, social unrest over racial injustice, and a crumbling economy—but all of those things that have become the year’s headlines suddenly had to share space in my heart and mind with something new and beautiful and, well, cool. I don’t think a day has passed in the ensuing months that I haven’t been on Apple Music, granting myself that little space to both escape from this world and to be inspired to build a better one. It is one of the things I will always remember 2020 for, and probably the one for which I will always be most grateful.

But it’s definitely not the only cool thing I learned or tried this year. It’s not even the only eye-opener for me in the world of technology and media. No, I got even further out of my old man mode when we finally cut the cable cord at my house. My wife had been cursing the cable company for years. I always watched the least amount of anything in my family, so I had no opinions. However, when we got Netflix and Prime Video a couple years ago, I was intrigued by this streaming thing but just never found much time to watch anything. When doing my cardio workouts in the gym, I always read books on my tablet. However, when the gyms closed in March and my workouts moved home, watching Netflix as I rode the treadmill became my new thing. I loved it. Later, when we finally cut ties with the cable company and took on Hulu, Sling, Disney+, ESPN+, and Apple TV+, I was in the mode of wanting more material for my workout hours. It was a revelation! Bravo, streaming services!

There is really some wonderful stuff out there. The artists are clearly in full bloom with all of these new outlets. I have found that I love documentaries. I have watched several good ones on different topics—from Bill Gates to Greta Thunberg–but find that I keep coming back to films that cover music and musicians, particularly those who were involved in the revolution of the 1960s. I just finished two fascinating ones about The Band—Once Were Brothers and The Last Waltz—but have also been captivated by pieces about Keith Richards, the artists who lived in Los Angeles’s Laurel Canyon in the sixties, and Sam Cooke, among others. I have dozens more on my watchlists.

Of the non-documentary things I have watched, a few of my favorites from this year are When They See Us, Schitt’s Creek, and The Trial Of The Chicago 7. There are so many more that intrigue me, but I know my chances of getting to them are slim. I am grateful for what I have seen, and grateful to 2020 for opening my eyes to so many wonderful works of art.

Whenever I watch a movie or TV show, though, it comes with a measure of guilt that I am ignoring the many brilliant books in the world. I did, however, find one released this Autumn that has stayed with me in the weeks since I have finished it. It is Greenlights, by the actor Matthew McConaughey. I was drawn to it because I learned that, like me, he has kept journals for all of his adult life, and the book used many of the insights he gained in writing them over the years. I have never been particularly drawn to McConaughey as an actor and so was otherwise skeptical going in, but I found myself captivated by his tales and the wisdom he drew from them. It is my favorite literary discovery of this year.

While I doubt I will ever be anyone’s favorite literary discovery, I did have a Journal of You highlight this Summer, albeit coming not from something I wish I had to write about. By many times over, more people than ever showed up to read and share my piece called “But I’m Not a Racist!” And Other Things We White Folks Need To Do Better. It came on the heels of the George Floyd murder, as the protests were getting into full swing. I certainly appreciated the positive feedback and was glad I could contribute to something so important.

I never know when something I write will resonate, but that moment in American history seemed to sweep so many of us up with it, and rightly so. In addition to writing a couple of pieces on it, the George Floyd murder brought me to another significant first in my life: my first real protest. I wasn’t in the throngs of people downtown getting teargassed or anything so dramatic, but I did bring my children to a local event where we got to lift our signs and our voices in a show of solidarity with our community against police violence and racial injustice. It was moving for me and hopefully something of a precursor for more social activism, both for me in my later years and for my children for the rest of their long and precious lives.

I spent more of 2020 than any other year on the seat of a bicycle. That seems a strange record, but it is true. With fewer “play” options for my kids, we took so many more rides on the streets of our town. I also got more into mountain biking at local trails; that was tremendously invigorating. Then, as Fate would have it, I sustained an injury that would not allow me to walk, run, or play sports. That would normally drive me to the nuthouse, but in a stroke of luck, I discovered that I was still able to ride a bicycle. Early mornings in Summer and Autumn were spent pedaling out the miles on the quiet streets in the surrounding towns. It was a delightful release to drink in that fresh air and still be able to sweat amidst my other physical limitations. When the days shortened and chilled, I got myself an indoor bike to sweat away the Winter. While I miss the fresh air and the lakes and trees, the workout is fantastic and much-needed. Perhaps I won’t need the riding so much in other years when my body is more cooperative, but I am so grateful to have found it and made it a big part of my life.

Speaking of that fresh air and those lakes and trees, my last, best discovery of this year was about spending time outside and having more adventures. Maybe this one qualifies more as a re-covery, since I have had it and lost it more than once in my many years on this planet. I feel like the year has left me more committed than ever to design my remaining years around being outdoors and exploring the beauty of Mother Earth. Most of my social media scrolling this year has been on the pages of National Parks and travel sites. I don’t think a single day has gone by when I haven’t added to my itinerary and fantasies for my next trip to Glacier country in Northwest Montana, and I have plotted adventures all across the American West, from Utah’s “Mighty Five” parks to the Sierra Nevadas of California and the Cascade Range in the Northwest. I have developed plans for overnights and weekends near home as well, with lots of hiking and sleeping in the pine-fresh air to the sounds of the forest and rippling streams.

Even as much of a Winter-hater as I am, my Christmas gifts this week included new snowshoes, trekking poles, fleeces, and a backpack (and I am even planning my next car and its necessary adventure accessories). I am more determined than ever to be an active participant in the outdoor activities of every season. Maybe I was coming to that anyway in my life’s evolution, or maybe 2020’s message of “Stay Home & Cover Your Breath” only served to stir up my natural resistance to being contained, or maybe it is some combination of the two. In any case, I now know in a deeper place that being in Nature is one of my greatest inspirations and an absolutely necessary fuel to get me through the rest of the world’s obligations and nonsense. It is both my escape and my spiritual home. I am relieved to know that so clearly now.

I guess most discoveries and favorites are like that: something outside of us—music, books, blogs, bicycles, and mountain streams—lights up something inside of us. They give our existence meaning and value. They buoy us against the storms of Life and make historically bad years seem pretty darn good after all. They are the source of our Gratitude and thus our Happiness. I am deeply grateful that there are so many of these points of light in my life, no matter the year. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying I want to do 2020 all over again! But I know that it brought me many gifts, and I refuse to look past them just because they arrived on the same train as COVID, racism, and political folly. I am grateful for this year and the many new things I know and love because I lived through it.

How about you? What are the coolest things you learned or tried in 2020? Open up your journal and your spirit and expose what the light let in this year. First, what new things did you learn? If you had extra time in the house, did you pick up any home improvement skills (e.g. Marie Kondo organizing, carpentry, plumbing)? How about personal improvement skills, like learning a language or a musical instrument? Did you learn how to be a teacher? Did you learn some new technology tricks, like how to Zoom? Did anything blow your mind? What did you try for the first time this year? New foods? New fitness routines? Online grocery shopping? Something outdoorsy? Did you do anything social justice-related this year that you had never previously been so moved to do, like a protest or a sign in your yard? How about with politics: did the extreme divisions among this year’s election issues and candidates spur you to participate in ways that you hadn’t before? Were most of the new things you tried in 2020 related to things specific to this year—being on lockdown, COVID, Trump drama, etc.—or were they more random and could have happened any year? Which of them will you continue with even when things return to whatever “normal” looks like to you? Now to the Arts. What musical styles or artists did you discover this year, whether they were new or just new to you? What was the best thing you watched on television? What were your favorite 2020 movies? Books? Did you try anything unique to get Art in unconventional ways, like attending a virtual theatre performance, concert, or museum tour? What else did you love? Did you have any personal bests this year? Did you excel at anything at your work? Did you improve upon a hobby or passion project? Were you a better friend, sibling, parent, co-worker, or ally? Did you find you were great at the self-care this year demanded? Finally, what did you discover about yourself this year? What issue or passion might you have had only a hint at before this year but now have a clear position on? Do you have a core belief that has changed? Do you know what you want to do more of (and less of) going forward? Are you clear that there are some people in your life who you need to distance yourself from? Are there others you would like to cultivate a deeper relationship with? How have you grown in the last year? Leave me a reply and let me know: What are the coolest things you have done and discovered in 2020?

Seek out the light,

William

P.S. If this resonated with you, please share it with your community. Let’s chase the bright spots together!

P.P.S. If this way of reflection and introspection appeals to your way of being, consider buying my book Journal Of YOU: Uncovering The Beauty That Is Your Truth, at your favorite online retailers. Namaste.

What Always Brings Tears To Your Eyes?

“Those who do not weep, do not see.” –Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“Tears are words that need to be written.” –Paulo Coelho

Hello friend,

Last weekend I attended my first virtual funeral. I don’t ever go to real funerals. It is just not my jam, for many reasons. However, this one had me especially intrigued, and since it was over Zoom, I figured that I could escape whenever I wanted. My commitment was minimal. I was drawn to this particular memorial not because I was so close with the deceased—indeed, we didn’t know each other well at all and hadn’t seen each other in years—but because of my sense of who he was (perhaps a kindred spirit) and the wide variety of lives I imagined that he had touched in his too-brief stay on this Earth. I knew that he was special, and I wanted to see how that presented itself in this final farewell. And honestly, I wanted a little more of him. I am sure we all did.

Throughout the service, which was designed to pack in as many different voices and testimonials as possible from the lives he touched along the way, I discovered a pattern in my emotional state: when the speaker was dry-eyed, I was dry-eyed; when the speaker cried, I cried. It never failed. Oh sure, I cried at a few other times, too, like when they showed a picture of him and my daughter when she was a baby or a picture of him and my wife smiling together. Those got me. But otherwise, it was a pretty safe bet that when I witnessed weeping, I wept.

I have come to know that pattern about myself over the years. When raw emotion is in front of me—especially crying but beyond that as well, even in Joy—I am an instant puddle. After studying myself through my journals for this long, I have come to chalk this characteristic up to the same Empathy that has shaped so much of my worldview, including my politics and spirituality. When I witness someone deep in feeling, it just seems to channel directly into my heart. I am powerfully moved in an instant. It can be a problem, but I mostly appreciate it. I like to be reminded occasionally that I have not hardened myself too much against this world that is so full of slings and arrows. I am still raw and affected. That is alright with me, especially the part of me that wants to remain an artist and a warrior for justice until the day I die. As long as I keep having authentic interactions with people and absorbing their genuine emotions, I am going to be a weeper.

But when else? Other than diving headlong into others’ drama, what are the other moments that get my tears going?

If you have been with Journal of You for a while—whether through these regular letters or just the book—you know that I spend a fair amount of time obsessing about Death and Legacy, the importance of my impact and what I will leave behind. I am so grateful that I have not yet had to face many deaths of those closest to me; I have always been lucky in that department. But it doesn’t stop my active imagination from running wild with images of that loss. I don’t mean scenes of graphic violence or horrific accidents; my mind does not go there. It does, however, go often to thoughts of learning of their loss or having the difficult conversations about life without them. I picture things like hearing about my child’s (or sister’s or mother’s) death or explaining my wife’s death to my children. Vivid scenes that sweep me away and leave me tear-stained.

Those daydreams, however, are nothing compared to the ones in which I am the one dying (usually of cancer) and have to communicate that with my wife and, even more often, my kids. Somehow, I seem to fall into this awful habit when I am driving alone. I think about making videos for them to watch when I am gone, on occasions like birthdays, graduations, or weddings, messages from their father who would be so proud of them and wish he were there. I make big speeches, often out loud in my car, by the end of which I am full-on sobbing, hardly able to see the road through my gushing eyes. By the time I realize what I am doing, I am practically panting in despair. It is embarrassing. It is that idea of leaving my family, though, that I simply cannot abide. That is a guaranteed tear-jerker.

Speaking of leaving my family, I am pretty quick to get weepy in saying goodbye to my parents and siblings after our too-infrequent visits. I try to fight it by rushing through the process, but by the time I hit the gas pedal to drive away, I am mush. Even though we all get frustrated with my Dad for doing it, sometimes I envy him for his habit of just sneaking off before the goodbye part of the visits. If we have gone to his house to stay for a holiday, he always manages to be “at work” when it comes time for us to leave town. If we meet up with him at the cabin and we are all planning to leave the same day, he gets up early and gets on the road before anyone realizes it is time to go. It’s pretty weasel-y, but at least he doesn’t have to face the emotion of goodbye. He leaves that for the rest of us, most of whom are pretty teary about it. I don’t really get that way with goodbyes with other people outside the family, but that is why family is family. It’s just deeper. I know I will be awful about it when my kids are grown.

I have a terrible time reading out loud, too, without crying. This happens with sad stories, of course. I still read to my daughter every night before bed, and it is highlight of my day, but I occasionally struggle to keep it together. I can laugh now at my attempts a few years ago to get through Where The Red Fern Grows with her, but it was a choking, teary mess at the time. Any sentimental message read aloud can get me, though, like a card or a Facebook post that I am sharing with my wife. It happens with my own writing, too, especially things about my feelings for loved ones. I sometimes read my work aloud to myself before publishing it, just to see if it flows, and I have definitely found myself in a puddle of tears on more than one occasion.

Likewise, I can envision wanting to say something at my parents’ funerals but just not being able to. I am one of those criers who simply cannot speak through the process. The emotion stabs me like a knife, and it’s like my air is just gone. I tried to say a few words about my grandfather during the visitation the night before his funeral, and it was a sobby, chokey, mostly silent mess.

Strangely, I have occasionally fancied the idea of being a television news reporter or anchor, probably a poor fit for a guy who cries when sharing almost any impactful story. It was more acceptable when I was studying to be an actor, which, now that I think of it, is probably how I fell into the habit of imagining all of those dramatic scenes I mentioned above that so regularly slay me in the car. I guess I am drawn to sharing the Truth of any situation—whether my own or of those whose stories need hearing—even if that sharing brings me to tears.

As I come to recognize that realization, I am reminded of my tendency to tear up—not sob, but just get “watery eyes”—in just about any direct, intimate conversation (typically one-on-one). I can recall so many conversations, especially ones concerning my loved ones or my own work—things like parent-teacher conferences and job interviews—when the eye-to-eye and the intimacy itself seems to draw the water involuntarily up to my eyes, even when seemingly inappropriate. As I said, it is not weeping in the usual sense—I am not breaking down emotionally in these otherwise-normal moments, just tearing up a bit (which can cause the normal to become slightly awkward, though people typically pretend not to notice). I chalk it up to sensitivity. I am a bit of a raw nerve, prone to really feel everything. It is just one of my idiosyncrasies. I roll with it.

I am not sure what it says about me, the things that bring me to tears and the regularity of them in my life. I tend to not judge it, not seeing it as either a particular strength or weakness. But is it? I kind of appreciate the cleansing nature of crying, but I don’t seek out opportunities for it (like I said, the dramatic driving scenes are not planned or even fully conscious, but rather just the result of getting swept up by my overactive imagination). I don’t have a strong desire to cry any more than I do now, though I would prefer not to have so much of the “watery eyes” in mundane, everyday conversations. I tend to see the source of my tears as an understanding of Love and the value of connection.

I also understand that I come at this topic as someone who is unusually blessed in my life circumstances and psychological make-up. I have been lucky all my life, with a healthy upbringing, a pleasant nuclear and extended family, always enough food on the table, with things I enjoy doing and people I enjoy spending time with (and, as I mentioned, I haven’t dealt with much death yet). My worldview is naturally optimistic, and I don’t struggle with anxiety or depression. I am resilient and self-confident, and I understand, thanks to my daily journaling, the minute details of what makes me tick. My mental health is in good shape. For all of these things, I am extremely lucky. I understand that if any one of them went the other way, my outlook on this topic of crying would likely be entirely different. I am grateful that most of my tears to this point have been healthy ones and from situations I could choose. I don’t ever cry because the world all seems too much for me, because I am stressed out or just can’t take one more thing working against me. I don’t cry because I hate my life or feel trapped or overburdened. I imagine those kinds of tears are pretty common in the world, and I know that Life still has many challenges remaining for me. A run of good luck doesn’t last forever.

This is part of why this topic is fascinating to me, and why I want to know your answer. It illustrates yet another way in which our stories are all different and thus why we need Empathy and Grace. Our tears, whether of Joy or Sadness or anything in between, reveal something special about us. No, reveal is the wrong word. Maybe indicate. The tears don’t tell the story. They merely indicate that there is something special worth digging into. Something deeper. Something worth the effort to understand and appreciate, because it is soul-level stuff, the kind that makes us who we are. For me, that means there is magic in those tears. The magic of our Truth. And I always, always, want to be a part of the Truth.

How about you? What always makes you cry? Open up your journal and your heart to explore the source and significance of those tears. What predictably makes you cry? Are your things specific events (e.g. a funeral, a break-up, a goodbye) or mental health-triggered issues (e.g. anxiety, depression, or the accumulation of Life just becoming too much sometimes)? What are the events that trigger you? Are they obviously heavy hitters, like death, or are they more subtle things? Who are the people usually associated with your tears? Has it been the same people all your life? How often are the these “people tears” due to how much you love them, and how often are they due to these people wronging you? Is that a healthy ratio? How do you do with goodbyes? What about books and movies (I’m a big movie crier)? Do you have any memories that always bring tears with them? Are those good memories or bad ones? How often do you cry tears of Joy? What other emotions make you cry? How often do ordinary, everyday life situations bring tears to your eyes? What kinds of conversations do it? Do you cry at the sight of others crying or suffering? How empathetic are you? Do you think your Empathy rating dictates how much you cry in response to others’ pain? Do you ever wonder about the source of your tears, their true trigger? What do your tears actually say about what is going on deep down inside you? Are they revealing of something you haven’t yet addressed and need to dig into? Do you need help with that? Do you believe your crying to be mostly a healthy sign, or a sign of problems? Do you usually feel better afterward? Do you wish you cried more often or less often? Which topics give you your best cries? Leave me a reply and let me know: What always brings tears to your eyes?

Be free,

William

P.S. If today’s topic resonated with you, please share it. We could all use a release from time to time.

P.P.S. If this way of introspection appeals to you, consider buying my book, Journal of YOU: Uncovering The Beauty That Is Your Truth, at your favorite online retailers.

Reasons To BE THANKFUL

“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” –Marcel Proust

“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorns have roses.” –Alphonse Karr, A Tour Round My Garden

“Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.” –Eckhart Tolle

Hello friend,

Happy Thanksgiving! I arose this morning with a welcome lightness in my heart. The weather here promises to allow for a pleasant walk down by the lake before I plop my butt down at the table (and the sofa, and the rocker, etc.) to gorge upon the culinary delights of the day. I am going to enjoy this holiday! After the all-time clunker that 2020 has been, I feel like I deserve that.

I mean, just think of all the things we have been through this year….NO! STOP! DON’T THINK OF THAT STUFF! That is not what this day is for. We don’t need to revisit that stuff today; it will be here waiting for us tomorrow. Today, let’s just focus on the good things in our lives, the things we really ought to be grateful for on a daily basis but sometimes forget to acknowledge because they are so much in our faces, so much the wallpaper of our lives. In this year when it is better that we not have a huge celebratory gathering, let’s muster up some huge Gratitude anyway.

I truly believe that Gratitude is the mother of Happiness. The way I see it, you just can’t get to any real, lasting Happiness unless you can acknowledge the blessings that surround you and permeate all that you do and all that you are. The ability to find a way to Gratitude no matter how your life looks is a rare and priceless gift, one that we should all strive for. I say we should begin today. Any day is a good day to choose Gratitude, but TODAY is always the best one. Not because it is Thanksgiving—which is a nice reminder, though, I admit—but rather because it is TODAY. NOW is always the best time to be more than who we have been. I want that. So, let us begin.

In this year when it was unwise to mingle outside of your household, I am so grateful for the three other people under my roof: my wife and kids. While we all have our moments of mess in all of these months of isolation, I can honestly say I would choose these guys to stay with if I had to do it all over again (which I might!). We are a team. A good one.

I am thankful for the fresh air and the ability to get outside and breathe it in. This year has had so much of “There’s nothing to do,” but my restless mind has been saved on so many days simply by getting out the door and feeling the air on my skin and in my lungs. Whether it is on a walk or bike ride around my neighborhood or swaying in my hammock as I stare up into the big trees and open sky, the option to get out and breathe it all in is often everything to me. I am grateful every time I am out there.

I am grateful for the other people in my life: my extended family, my friends, my co-workers, my social media community, and you. For the ones who have been my allies, either silently and vocally, I am more thankful than ever for them this year. And though some of us don’t always see eye-to-eye and have needed even more boundaries this year than ever to maintain our sanity—loving from a healthy distance has become a well-practiced skill—I am glad to know they are out there, and I truly wish the best for them. I am so pleased—and relieved, really—that after all of the political drama of this year and the (not always spoken) tension and strain it has brought into so many of my relationships, that I can sincerely wish them all health and happiness (and, of course, a more empathetic, liberal worldview!). I guess sometimes a simple lack of grudges and bitterness is a gift. Blessings come with many different faces; today I am thankful for all of them and the lessons they keep teaching me.

I am grateful for my health. I know people who have had COVID and been relatively unscathed by it, and I know people who have died from it, and many variations in between. It scares me, and I am so thankful that no one inside my house has had it. But it is not just the absence of COVID that I feel grateful for. I have struggled with an injury for much of this year that has limited my ability to move freely and to enjoy many of the things I love to do. That has made me acutely aware of the things I can still do and has made me grateful for each improvement I have made on my way back to health. I am truly delighted to be able to do the things I can do.

I am grateful for writing. Both my daily journal entries and these occasional letters to you provide me with some much-needed clarity and sanity. That is certainly the case this year, but I can say the same every year. It is my escape from “reality” but simultaneously my access to Truth. I am thankful for it every day.

Lastly, I am grateful for days like today that are meant to give me both the time and the reminder to be thankful. While it is nice, on an ordinary day of the year, to bring my awareness into a moment and find myself smiling or feeling a wave of positive energy all around me, it is so much better when I can extend that awareness to the reasons for my Joy and for the lightness in my being. This day is all about that awareness. It reminds me of the things that I need to seek out more of in my life. I appreciate both the reminder and the lightness of being.

How about you? What are you grateful for today? Open up your journal and your heart. What comes to mind first when you think about your greatest blessings on this day? Is it a person, an object, something you do, a state of being, or something else? Are you aware of your gifts often enough throughout the year, or is this the day that makes you fully conscious? Of the things you are most grateful for, what can you do throughout the year to bring more of them into your life? How can you become more grateful? A Gratitude journal? Prayer? A Gratitude jar? Regular journaling? Is it just a matter of changing your lenses and focusing on the right thing, the roses rather than the thorns? What method will you start with? Leave me a reply and let me know: What are your reasons to be thankful today?

Happy Thanksgiving,

William

P.S. If this resonated with you today, please share it. Spread Gratitude!

P.P.S. If this way of questioning yourself and discovering your light appeals to you, consider buying my book, Journal of YOU: Uncovering The Beauty That Is Your Truth, at your favorite online retailer. Namaste.

Election Stress: What Do You Have To Lose On November 3rd?

“You’re not to be so blind with patriotism that you can’t face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it.” –Malcolm X, By Any Means Necessary

“If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States.” –Henry Wallace

Hello friend,

Remember the old days, when it was common to say that the distinction between Republicans and Democrats was simply a matter of both wanting the same things for our country but just having slightly different ways of getting there? Gosh, how swell we all were. Remember when it was normal for members of Congress to “reach across the aisle,” to pass lots of “bipartisan legislation” on issues we could all agree on? How quaint. Remember when, even though you may have really cared who won the presidential election, your everyday life and the general tension and anxiety you felt in the ensuing four years didn’t change much depending upon who won? Remember that? I do.

Those days are gone.

Although I have voted in every election since I was 18, I’ll be the first to admit that I wasn’t the most politically aware and engaged citizen in my teens and twenties. If there was a wild disparity between the candidates’ positions and how their time in office would shake out for us, I was blissfully ignorant of it. And while I know that no one likes it when their party’s candidates lose the big races, I just never felt a lot of extreme animosity between the actual voters based on who they were voting for. Like I said, maybe that was simply my ignorance and the naïveté of an optimistic youth, but maybe there is more to it. Maybe we actually had more in common with each other back then, politically speaking, and the reach across the aisle didn’t require all that much flexibility. Maybe we only needed to be sour about the lost elections for a few weeks or months—definitely not years–afterward because our lives didn’t actually change that much either way.

This moment feels nothing like that to me.

I remember Election Night in 2016. As it became clear that Donald Trump was on his way to defeating Hillary Clinton, a feeling of awful dread came over me. Here was a man who had, in both his presidential campaign and his many years of celebrity beforehand, exhibited blatant racism, sexism, xenophobia, boasts of sexual assault, and general moral indecency. Combined with the fact that the policies he stood for and against were in direct opposition to my own, I was none too excited about the coming four years under his leadership.

Still, I held out some measure of hope that, as many pundits suggested, “the office would chasten him.” Surely, as the representative of every American, he would tone down his callousness toward the majority of them. Surely, as someone without experience in global politics and diplomacy, he would surround himself with wise and seasoned counsel and heed their advice in order to keep Americans safe and prosperous and keep America in its position as world leader.

None of that happened. As the four years have dragged on, one Twitter rant and national embarrassment at a time, my hopes have long since faded. As I listened to a news show this week, the host implored the President to use these last days before the election to turn things around on his brazen, anti-science messaging around the coronavirus pandemic in order to save American lives. The guest, once a surrogate for the President, shook his head and said, “No chance.”

That is the essence of the effects of these last four years of American politics for me: a crushing of hope, a growing shame, perpetual disappointment, and a growing list of reasons to fear for my family’s health and safety.

So you better believe I am anxious about Election Day 2020. Even with all that has been lost under this leadership, there is still so much more to lose if it is allowed to continue. These are just a few of the things that keep me up at night when I think about four more years of this:

The environment matters to me, as does addressing the scientific reality of climate change. When we began this Presidency by withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accords, I knew it signaled an opening of the floodgates. It sickens me each time I read of the administration’s gutting of our environmental regulations–more than 100 at this point, including the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act–and opens once-protected lands to new drilling, logging, mining, and fracking. The sides in this election could not be more different when it comes to climate change and the environment, and indeed, even simply acknowledging the value of science and truth.

Health care matters to me. Even though neither of the big party candidates endorses the universal health care/Medicare For All type of plan that I believe would best serve all Americans, it is clear which candidate’s plan–or, at least, the one candidate with a plan–will get more people covered with fewer of the crippling expenses. I will not get to my preferred destination in this election, but I at least want the guy who is going in the same direction I am.

Our democratic norms matter to me. I miss the days when the President actually followed the rules and norms associated with the office (even if I despised that President). The President used to be unable to profit directly from the Presidency while he was President. The President and his staff used to not endorse products. The President used to not give top security clearance to people denied security clearance. The President used to not publicly urge the Attorney General to bring charges against his political opponents. The President used to not conspire with foreign governments (especially enemy governments) to get elected. The President used to disclose his taxes and financial dealings so that the people knew to whom he might be beholden. The President and his doctors used to tell us the truth (at least most of it) about the President’s health. The President used to not encourage uprisings in the states or fail to condemn threats against governors. The President used to not spread lies meant to cast doubt on the validity of an election. The President used to not directly contradict the findings of his own Intelligence agencies and Health experts.

Decency matters to me. Period.

I wish I didn’t have to mention this after all of these months, but here goes: a national plan to control the coronavirus pandemic and to get ordinary Americans and small businesses back on their feet financially matters to me. The current administration has plainly had its chance and failed miserably with its anti-science, anti-responsibility, “non-plan” approach. Nearly a quarter of a MILLION Americans have died as a result. It is indefensible. There is another way, as proven by most other countries around the world.

Finally–and this feels absurd that I should have to say this in America in 2020, but I do–my Black family’s safety matters to me. I know there are lots of White Americans out there rolling their eyes at this idea. If that is you, consider yourself privileged. When the President calls the neo-Nazis and white supremacists in Charlottesville “very fine people,” their websites celebrate a major victory and hail him as their leader. When the President tells the violent, neo-fascist Proud Boys to “stand by,” the effect upon them is the same. When he is silent around issues of police brutality and the killing of unarmed Black people, it is a clear message to those inclined to do that kind of harm. His lead in the birther conspiracy regarding President Obama, his history of racist business practices, and his infamous role in the Central Park Five miscarriage of justice all further lay that racist foundation. If those things seem disconnected from your life and just another knock on the man’s flawed morals, then, again, consider yourself lucky. If you are Black or Brown, however, you know that these comments and this silence have a very real impact on your life. I have loved ones who have anxiety about being out anymore, who fear being physically or verbally assaulted in a public place by White supremacists emboldened by the President. Think about that. Hate groups reveling in their glorious worst because their ideal President gives them an encouraging wink and a dogwhistle. The momentum of it builds with each speech and act, and the number of hate groups has risen dramatically during this administration. I have watched videos of these groups showing their eagerness to bring violence should the Democrats win this election. Imagine how much worse it will be with another four years of hate-mongering. It should not be the burden of any American to carry that fear with them every day.

I am well aware that there are many more reasons people are feeling anxious about the results of this election. Supreme Court imbalances, women’s rights, immigration, LGBTQ rights, gun control, the stock market, minimum wage, college tuition pricing, corruption, decline in our standing in the world at large, and on and on and on. And not just on my side of the spectrum. All sides. And not just reasonable concerns backed by facts and historical record. The liars and conspiracy pushers make for fantastic anxiety boosters. My own mother, for example, consumes Fox News like a drug all day long and happily swallows any flavor of nonsense they feed her and uses it to fuel her delusions about what the Democrats might do if elected. Even if you are so fortunate as to be unconcerned with politics, I don’t see how you aren’t still aware of this moment’s effects on your family and friends. The tension is palpable.

I suppose the only thing to do now is to vote and then see what those votes tell us. Of course, if the Proud Boys videos are accurate, we may then have to endure a “war” in our own country. Ah yes, another reason for anxiety, just what we need. For me, those vote totals will either lead to four more years of stress (and anger and sadness and embarrassment and…..), or they will lead to what I hope will be a pivot point, the first step of many in the direction toward Calm and Decency. As one of the candidates is fond of saying, it really does feel like a battle for “the soul of America.” I hope my soul can relax soon, because, politically speaking, these have been the four worst, most tense years of my life, by a country mile. I will be on the edge of my seat come the first week of November, aching to lay down this heavy load. The stress has taken over me.

How about you? What stresses you about the results of the upcoming election? Open up your journal and sort out what the different leaders might bring to your life and your mental health. Over the last four years, what things have been lost or gained in our country’s leadership? How is this administration different than a “normal” one? Which of those differences would you like to see continue? Which aspects of the current President most concern you? Which issues are mere annoyances–personality flaws or differences of opinion on policy issues–and which are downright alarming (e.g. genuine threats to democracy)? Have you felt your personal health or safety unusually threatened under the current President, with things such as COVID-19 or unchecked hate groups? How unsettling are the flouting of democratic norms and authoritarian tendencies (e.g. use of Justice Department to threaten personal enemies, use of Presidency for direct financial gain, antagonizing journalists) to you? How has your general stress level changed in the last four years? Do you miss Decency and Grace? What are you most anxious about losing if the President wins re-election? Let’s switch it around. If you are voting for the President to win again, how anxious are you about what a Democratic leadership would bring? What issues most worry you? Of the things that you gained in the current Presidency, which of those things would it hurt you most to lose? Do you recall all of the things you thought were so terrible about President Obama? Do you fear a repeat of that if the Democrats win this time? Do you fear worse this time? In what ways? Do you believe that someone who has been a moderate his entire life is suddenly going to become a “radical liberal?” What does your worst-case scenario look like? No matter which side you are voting for, on a scale of 1 to10, how stressed are you about this election? Is that number higher or lower than most of the people in your life? Is it higher or lower than in other election years? What is it about this one? Have you found any ways to reduce your election stress? If you could look four years into the future, do you think the next big election will bring you any less stress? Does this feel like the most important election of your lifetime? Is that why it brings so much tension? Leave me a reply and let me know: What do you have to lose on November 3^rd?

Vote like your life depends on it,

William

P.S. If today’s letter resonates with you, please share it with all the parties you know. In the end, it is our connectedness that will save us.

P.P.S. If you like this way of introspection, please consider buying my book, Journal of YOU: Uncovering The Beauty That Is Your Truth, at your favorite online retailers.

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