Category Archives: Self-esteem

What I’ve Learned In 12 Years of Marriage

DSC_0230“It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.” –Friedrich Nietzsche

Hello friend,

Today is my anniversary! Twelve years ago, in front of a small group of loved ones on a gorgeous Saturday, I vowed my friendship and love to an amazing woman. Near the end of the vows, I said, “It is my intention to be with you forever….” That’s everyone’s intention, right? So, why does it seem so rare that people actually pull off this trick of staying married forever? Beyond that, why is it even more rare to stay happily married forever, with the friendship and love still flowing? Well, I’ve only been at it for twelve years, so I can’t claim any great expertise or mastery on the topic of a lasting marriage. But, at least at this point, it feels like we are ready to press on to our Forever, walking the Road of Life hand-in-hand. I sure hope so.

Marriage is a challenge. Whoever tells you otherwise is a liar. For almost everyone I meet, I can, within a few minutes, tell you about a dozen reasons why I would not want to be married to them. It is simply a challenge to live cohesively with someone for any extended period. It is why, for most of us, we love it when our friends or relatives come for a visit, but we also secretly love it when they leave.

And I am the worst. There is no way I could be married to me. I am spoiled. I hold everyone to very high standards. I am opinionated. I am stubborn. I am sure that I am always right. And, possibly most challenging in a marriage, I am hypersensitive; I take everything to heart. All of that makes for a combustible mix of “Difficult to Live With”. I would not wish me upon anyone. My wife, needless to say, is a saint.

I never thought I would marry. Before I met my wife, I was too blissful in my singlehood to think of marriage as an option. I just liked being alone and devoting my life to personal improvement: learning and growing spiritually and intellectually. I guess I thought marriage would stifle that learning and development. As it turns out, marriage has taught me a few things that no amount of book-learning or meditation ever could. For a guy who naturally prefers solitude, twelve years in a marriage—and nearly seven as a father—come with lessons that are only understood intellectually but never mastered, that must be re-learned and practiced every single day.

The first lesson that I practice—and fail at—every day is the importance of continuing to act like my partner’s best friend and biggest fan. I think so much of this lesson that when I was asked to officiate at my sister’s wedding a few years ago, I chose it as the main focus of my sermon. It is easy in the euphoric beginning to be the biggest fan and the best friend. The “in love” part is still in full effect, and the personality and behavioral idiosyncrasies—as well as their contrasting viewpoints on what cleanliness looks like, how much time with in-laws is enough, how to spend your money, what to watch on television, how frequently to have date night (and “date night”), where do your shoes go when you come inside, and how to raise children, to name a few—have not been in your face EVERY SINGLE DAY without pause. The challenge is to be able to pull off the “How would the biggest fan act?” and “How would a best friend act?” every day, even while swimming in the pool of all these potential triggers. The lesson I am learning—and trying to remind myself every day—is to ask those questions and be sure that I can answer with my head held high. It is a challenge.

Another daily challenge of a lesson for me in my super-sensitivity is to not take umbrage at every seeming slight or unfairness—“Why do I have to cook so often?” or “Why don’t you acknowledge me for all I do?” or “That comment was passive-aggressive”—because letting all of that stuff stick only makes you bitter and more thin-skinned the next time, as though you are always building a case against your partner. Building a case against them—just like “keeping score” on the dishes or the cleaning or the gifts—is a recipe for disaster. It only makes you more resentful, and only makes them more defensive and distrusting, seeing your love as conditional. I am all for communicating your needs and letting your partner know when they have hurt you—I need to work on that one rather than writing it in my journal—but I have definitely come to see what a terrible waste of energy it is to hold onto every little grievance, or even to take them seriously. Choosing every one makes you a constant victim and makes your partner feel like they can’t do anything right. Neither of those roles is fun to play.

One role that is good to play is Yourself. I am learning—and trying to put into practice—the lesson to let your partner be who they are, even the stuff you would rather change. Challenge them, sure, and help them see if they are being destructive, but sometimes you just have to understand that they aren’t there for you to mold them. Just love them and accept them. Affirm that you love unconditionally. Feed whatever parts work for you while still accepting the rest.

Probably the greater lesson that binds these other lessons together—and actually bonds each of our individual lives together—is the supreme importance of CHOICE in all of this. You have to CHOOSE the right attitude, CHOOSE to be forgiving, CHOOSE to be a fan, CHOOSE to not be petty or snarky. It seems way easier to let a marriage drift into unloving, spiteful oblivion—which I believe it would do if left to its own devices—than it is to CHOOSE to do the daily work of cooperating, forgiving, and supporting. But what do you want? You have to do the things—CHOOSE the things—that get you what you want. If you want marriage to work, CHOOSE to do the things that make it work. Of course, it still requires your partner choosing to do the same, but start with yourself. You have control of that much.

Yes, as a grizzled veteran of twelve years in the marriage game—were those the easy dozen or the difficult dozen???—my takeaways seem to come down to some really simple concepts: appreciation, forgiveness, acceptance, and the absolute necessity of choosing the right attitude. Hey, those sound like my takeaways from LIFE! Oh, what a tangled web we weave. In the end, good principles transcend all institutions and never go out of style. I can only hope that I have the fortitude to keep these lessons front and center for all of my days to come. If I can do that, I can earn my “happily ever after”.

How about you? What lessons do you take from your most intimate relationship? Open up your journal and dive deep into what makes it go and what makes it stall out. How equal is your partnership? If you had to name a percentage, how much of the load do you feel like you are carrying when it comes to keeping the relationship going? How much of the physical load (e.g., keeping up the house, taking care of kids, etc.)? How about the emotional load? Financial? Is one of you clearly the rock, or does that role get passed back and forth depending on the situation? How long have you been in this relationship? If you had to guess, is it going to last until death do you part? How confident are you in that guess, and what dictates that level of confidence? How good of a job do you do at being your partner’s biggest fan? How about their best friend? Are you doing better or worse at it now than you used to? If worse, why do you think it turned? What can you do to better act like the biggest fan and best friend? How sensitive are you to perceived slights by your partner? How much do you feel like you are keeping score against them and building a case? Does that serve you in any positive ways? How well do you do at allowing your partner to be themselves? How consistent are you in the attitude you choose for the day? Do you usually go more positive and forgiving, or do you tend toward the negative and unforgiving side? What principles guide your relationship? How is that working out for you? If you could choose other principles—(hint: you can!)—what would they be? Do you think it’s up to you how long and strong your relationship goes? What’s your prediction? Beyond just lasting, what have you learned about how to make it happy? Leave me a reply and let me know: What have you learned, and how far is that going to take you? 

Go and love,

William

A Father’s Humanity

IMG_1209“Of all the titles that I’ve been privileged to have, the title of ‘dad’ has always been the best.” –Ken Norton

Hello friend,

I think my Dad probably gets a bad rap in these posts. I recently wrote about how much of a momma’s boy I am (see “A Mother’s Son”), and how so many of my most favorite memories involve my Mom. Along the way, I have mentioned how different my Dad and I are from each other in our willingness to show emotions and how I have never really gained access to that wonderful circle of friendship and common interests that he shares with my older brothers. These things are true, but they also perhaps lead the reader to believe that my old man is cold and heartless, more of a robot than a man. This is simply not true.

I think most kids tend to see their father as something of a superhero. Dads are strong, always carrying the kids around on their shoulders and lifting them up to see things. Dads are smart, fixing broken toys or knowing the answers to homework questions. Dads are powerful, coming home from work—where they were surely in charge of something–with the power to buy pizza and ice cream, or the power to punish bad behavior, because “Wait until your father gets home!” preceded him. Dads are tough, always doing brave things like getting up in the dark to go out and kill animals with guns or shoveling all of that snow from the blizzard. And Dads never cry. They keep their feelings at a distance so they won’t ever look weak. With all of this, how could we NOT see our fathers as superheroes? That is pretty much the way I saw mine.

But superheroes, as mythical and awe-inspiring as they are, are hard to get to know. Their invincibility—the very thing that makes them super—is what makes it hard for anyone to really touch them. Keeping their feelings at a distance keeps them super, of course, but it also keeps people at a distance, too. It is, quite simply, one of the hazards of the job.

My poor father! Between his innate aversion to emotional closeness and sharing, and his natural charisma and talents that made him so much the superhero to all kids, he had to go and have a son like me! As I have mentioned to you many times in other posts, I like my relationships deep and open. My innate aversion is the opposite of my old man’s: it is small-talk and all things guarded. I want to live out loud and explore the range and complexity of the human condition, one deep encounter at a time. My Dad? Well, not as much.

So, could these seemingly star-crossed souls co-exist in adulthood—after all of my childhood’s starry-eyed hero worship had settled–to either one’s satisfaction? From my end, at least, it turned out that I found what I needed in my Dad’s most difficult hours.

Twenty Summers ago, I got in my car and took an epic roadtrip from Los Angeles up the Pacific Coast Highway, checked out the mountains of Oregon and Washington, wandered through Glacier country, and arrived back in my childhood home in the wee hours of what would be my Mom’s fiftieth birthday. Later that night, my Dad had a massive heart attack and nearly died. I remember driving to the hospital later with my sisters and, just before we arrived, my dam burst. I started sobbing uncontrollably. It happened again later in the day, after talking with the nurse about my Dad’s status. I went out alone into the hallway, just out of the ICU, and just crumbled onto the floor and sobbed like a baby. At that age, still 22, I wouldn’t have called our relationship a close one. On top of that was the fact that less than two years earlier, I had made my big announcement that I was quitting pre-Med, leaving school, and heading off to become a star. I knew it was a huge shock and disappointment to nearly every person in my life. But most of all, I was completely certain that it was my Dad who harbored the greatest disappointment. It seemed, from my view at least, to be much more than just disappointment, though. It felt like embarrassment.

So it was that I found myself passing the night by his side in his curtained-off “room” in the ICU the night after his surgery. I had volunteered for the job of sitting by him and feeding him little ice chips in the brief and random moments when he would awaken from the drugs, a million tubes running out of him, to ease the extreme cottonmouth that is part of the process. In the semi-dark room, his eyes would pop open in alarm. With him unable to speak, I would look calmly into his eyes and ask if he wanted some ice. Invariably his eyes would tell me that he did, and so I would spoon him the tiny chips, as I had been instructed by the nurse. Then he would drift quickly back into oblivion, only to have the same thing happen a few moments later. Over and over through the long night. In the longer unconscious spells, I would talk to him about Notre Dame football and other random stuff, hopeful that a familiar voice might help him make it through. I am certain he has no recollection of that night, but it is one I will never forget. It gave me—the black sheep and disgrace of his wonderful brood—a chance to actually be of service to this superhero in his one moment of vulnerability. I am sure I needed it more than he did.

Fast forward many years into the more recent past. My Dad had battled and re-battled alcoholism for long stretches of my adulthood. If you have ever been around alcoholism, you know it is no facilitator for deeper, more meaningful relationships. It slowly dulls the drinker and, on its best days, dulls all relationships in the vicinity. Still, even in that subhuman state, my Dad had the wherewithal to take on the challenge of treatment to pull himself out of the abyss that is that terrible disease (I am still really proud of him for that).

It was in that setting of a treatment facility that I had my other poignant moment with my Dad that will remain etched in my memory for life. I hadn’t seen him since the intervention, which is, of course, a heart-wrenching experience for everyone involved. I drove out to the facility with my sister on a beautiful Sunday afternoon near the end of his treatment, both a little nervous about what we would find. And there he was: a superhero with a brand new supersuit and gadgets. He was so fresh and spry and sharp and all things alive. It completely floored me; I guess I had forgotten who he really was in all of those dulled-over years. I marveled at his confidence, charm, and charisma as he toured us around the facility like it was his own. He introduced us to all the guys—he even seemed proud as he did—and they all revered him as their leader and a great man. I loved that. But the moment that has stuck with me the most came after we had met everyone and toured all the buildings. We found a trail along the woods to wander and eventually sat down on a bench for a break in the quiet beauty of the day. My sister was between us, so I studied him secretly as he told stories about the guys and their families and all of the crazy drama that had brought them to the facility. He looked mostly ahead into the greenery and occasionally to my sister, and I just stared at his eyes as he spoke. They were so astoundingly alive and sharp. So vibrant. He seemed completely new. Revitalized. I had my Dad back, and that was everything. I will never forget that look in his eyes. Never.

In the end, those two little moments that my Dad wasn’t even aware of are the ones that draw us together in my mind, helping me to feel closer to a man who never made that easy. What I have learned in this ongoing process is that maybe you don’t have to be “close” to someone to still have a special relationship. I don’t expect my Dad to suddenly become all emotionally gushy at this point, and I don’t want him to pretend to be more proud of me than he really is. I still think the world of him, and he still affects me profoundly every day. I cherish the times we have together, and I appreciate that my kids have gotten to know him and love him, too. I will take him just as he is. And hey, maybe we will get one more memory before his story is all said and done, a last moment when my superhero’s vulnerability grabs hold of me in a way that speaks the language of my heart. Maybe. If not, I am okay with that, too. He will always be my old man. That is enough for me. More than enough.

How about you? What is the dynamic between you and your father? Open up your journal and take yourself through your relationship. You can do this whether your father is dead or alive, a huge part of your everyday life or hardly involved at all. How close are you? Are you closer now than you were before, or drifting further apart? How has that closeness changed through the years? What do you attribute that to? How similar are you to your Dad? Does that make things easier or harder for the relationship? What memories most define your relationship with your father? Are they big events, or subtle things that he may not even be aware of? What makes those memories stick for you? Whether or not he is alive, what would you most like your father to know? Are those words that you have the courage to say? How about today? Rather than leaving me a reply this time, use your words to tell a father that you love and appreciate him. Happy Father’s Day!

Love across difference,

William

A Precious Memory

DSC_0497“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

I was shaken this week by a note from one of my dear friends. I have since been unable to let go of the demons it released in me. The note simply said that my friend—who is in her mid-50s—has been experiencing memory loss, both short-term and long-term. It has been going on for a couple of years but increasing to an alarming degree recently. She can do every step in a procedure if it is written down, but if you ask her a few minutes later if she did the thing or how, she hasn’t the foggiest idea. Memories from her past are being lost as well. She is losing contact with the path from which she came.

If you know me at all, you know that the very thought of this completely freaks me out. Of course, my very first reaction to the note was to feel absolutely awful for my friend. I cannot even begin to imagine the sort of terror that must strike her when an episode occurs–when her connection to the past is cut–much less how she has come to live with the reality of that disconnection in her daily existence. And that is exactly what freaks me out.

My brain and the life of my mind have always meant so much to me. Perhaps too much, even. I have always felt extremely grateful to be relatively intelligent, as I have seen the ways it has given me advantages in the world. I have definitely had my moments when I have been an intellectual snob, somewhat looking down my smarty-pants nose when dealing with people who don’t seem to me to be understanding the situation very well, especially if they are arguing against me. I have a way of using the science of Logic to win any argument, even if I am the only one using my scoring system. I am sure it is mostly annoying to the people around me.   I try to not make it about my ego, but I also get some satisfaction in my ability to pick any issue apart in my mind and see it rationally. And because I am over-sensitive, I have played every argument I have ever had over and over in my head a thousand times (so I know who was right!).

The other reason—aside from simple intelligence—that I have so valued the life of my mind is that I have spent so much time there, my mind as my best friend. I think of all the years I lived in cities far away from home, where I hardly knew anyone at all. Then I think of the months I spent wandering around Europe alone, both not knowing anyone and often not speaking the same language as anyone. I also think of the years I spent living in a way that others described “as a hermit,” basically holed up with my books and journals. My primary company was myself, and I relied upon my mind to sustain me. I am so grateful that those years of solitude were indescribably blissful for me. I have always thanked the power of the mind for that.

This is exactly why my friend’s note threw me for a loop. Although I have spent a lot of thought on cancer and its potential devastation on my family, the disease that truly frightens me the most is Alzheimer’s. I simply cannot bear the prospect of being betrayed by my precious mind. Basically every aspect of the disease sounds like my worst nightmare: memory loss, disorientation, misinterpreting spatial relationships, having trouble finding the right words in speaking and writing, difficulty with concentration and reasoning, poor judgment and decision-making skills, struggling with the routine of basic activities, and personality changes. All of those seem absolutely dreadful to me, but the first and most obvious Alzheimer’s symptom—memory loss—really strikes fear deep into my heart. I could not bear to lose the memories that seem to make up the substance of my beautiful life.

I am a personal historian by nature. I love to chronicle my life and that of my family. It would be a dream come true for me to have my parents and all of my aunts and uncles come together and allow me to film them in group and individual interviews about their lives growing up and what they know of my ancestors. In lieu of that, I chronicle my own life. I take thousands of photos every year and keep them well-sorted. And of course, I journal. Although I have never thought that the reason why I journal is to have accurate memories of my life—I do it to maintain clarity about who I am—I must admit that it is a wonderful treat to be able to look back on the 50 or so volumes I have filled to see what I have been doing all these years. Reading through them for “The Journal Project,” I had so many moments when I laughed and said to myself, “I totally forgot about that!” It is fun to have a record of it all to jog my memory.

Now the memories I am trying to create—and document—are of my kids. I try to spend every possible moment with them. I seriously do not want to miss a single thing. I cherish them all, from the giggly moments wrestling on the playroom floor, to the quietly appreciative ones, when I just sit back at a distance on my hammock and watch them spin each other around in the swing in the backyard. In those quiet moments, I am fully aware of just how blessed I am to share a life with them, and I try to burn those memories deeply into my brain so I can hearken back to them as they grow up and I grow old. When the moment allows it, I try to capture them with the lens of my camera, as I do love to sit at my computer and watch slideshows of them from our favorite days. However, I am beginning to see that the best way to fully take them into my heart is to engage with them. To put down that camera and jump into the fray while they still want me to. The magic is in the connection with them, a connection that can only be made when I am fully engaged, fully present.

In fact, what I am learning now is that it isn’t the memories that make up the substance of this life. It is the present moment. This is what we have! This is the only tense where we get to exercise any sort of control. This eternal moment of NOW is where we get to decide, in every moment, who we are going to be. NOW is where we feel Joy. Now is where Peace exists. NOW is when we forgive. NOW is the time we get to choose our attitude and our actions. NOW is when we connect with those we love. The world will always deliver us into new circumstances—with or without money, near or far from loved ones, cursed or applauded, sharp as a tack or being betrayed by your brain with Alzheimer’s—and all we can control is our attitude in the present moment. The precious present.

This is my lesson from this week of fret and concern about losing my mind and my memories. When I look at the other things that have haunted me in recent years—fears of cancer, of losing my parents, of my wife dying young—it seems that the remedy is exactly the same. Stay in the moment, and make the most of every one. If my parents or my wife dies–or if my body gets eaten by cancer or my mind by Alzheimer’s—the only thing that will save me from regret is if I know I gave myself completely when we were together, that we made the most of our time. And that we were present. Completely present in this most precious tense. This is the one silver lining I see for my dear friend who is losing her memory: at least she has the present. She can still find Joy and Peace and Love in every moment, even if she doesn’t remember the specifics of it later. Maybe that is enough. I hope it is.

How about you? What ailments or afflictions do you dread the most? Open up your journal and explore the possibilities. What makes your stomach turn when you think of the possibility of getting it? Is it an injury, perhaps something that does not allow you to be mobile or athletic anymore? I know it would drive me crazy not to be able to exercise or chase my kids around. What about paralysis or infirmity, where you require someone’s help to do even the basics of life, like eating or using the toilet? Do you fear that type of dependence? How about cancer? That one scares the daylights out of me, because I have seen it ravage both the body and the mind. What have you witnessed, and what effect has that had on your fears and on your appreciation for life and for living in the present? On a scale of one to ten, how badly do you dread the prospect of Alzheimer’s or another disease of the mind? Does it make you want to take more photos or videos, or journal more? Or rather, does it just make you want to be better at soaking up each moment you have? Is presence the best answer? Leave me a reply and let me know: How do you make peace with your biggest fears?

Be your best right now,

William

I Love SUMMER!!!

DSC_1060“Summer….and sun….and all things hot….” –Olaf, Frozen 

Hello friend,

Today is the day that excites me more than all the others on the calendar. Honestly, the only thing that could make it better would be presents. I am giddy with anticipation! For what, you ask? Well, today was the last day of school. And while that is cool on its own—pride, relief, accomplishment, and that sort of thing—its primary appeal to me is something totally different. What the last day of school means to me is that I can finally enter my element. My comfort zone. My season. My beloved SUMMER.

I love Summer! I could shout it from the rooftops and the hilltops. Love LOVE love it! It fills my heart with such Joy and my mind with such Peace. It truly settles into my soul and creates a different person for these few precious months each year. I am a new man. It grounds me, even as it reinvigorates me like a magic elixir. I am completely enchanted by it. It is my home.

It has always been this way for me. I remember the giddiness of the last day of school every year, so excited for freedom. When I look back on the long history of my time on this Earth, it seems that nearly every single memory comes from Summer. As a kid, I think of all of those classic, cross-country roadtrips we took in the family van, all of us packed in there for every meal and every night of sleep. I think of spending weekends at my cousins’ old lake cabin, swinging from the rafters and listening to REO Speedwagon on the record player (“Take it on the run, baby….”) as we stayed up way too late on the sugar rush of Tangy Taffy and Ring Pops. I think of my carefree neighborhood that seemed to center around my yard, where all the kids gathered daily to play Capture The Flag (“Flag Game” to us) by day and Kick The Can by night. I think of walking over to the tennis courts in the morning with my brothers and neighbors, playing until lunch, then returning for more in the afternoon and evening. I think of making a bike track—replete with water jumps and berms–around the empty lot next door to my house, where we were BMX champions, if only in our minds. I think of building the family cabin and wild death rides on the tube behind the boat at my beloved Pelican Lake, where my kids now make their favorite memories every Summer. I think of every tennis tournament I ever played. My entire childhood lives in my mind as one hot, gorgeous Summer day.

Even my adult memories, though, seem to share the same setting. I remember in my college years, every night of Summer was about hanging with my buddies, asking each other endlessly, “What should we do?” as we laughed away the hours making fun of each other (because there was nothing else to do). I remember rollerblading along Lake Michigan at sunset in my Chicago Summer, and all over Washington, DC and Los Angeles other years. I remember my indescribable joy while surfing the Pacific Ocean, so sure was I that nothing could ever top that feeling. I remember my many camping trips to Glacier National Park and the Bliss that I found there. I remember all of my other solo voyages across the land, pitching my tent on a dry lake bed in the desert, on a cliff above the ocean, and along countless streams and forests in between. I remember golfing The Grove on quiet Friday nights with my Mom, enchanted by the complete serenity of the walk in that amazing light. I think of the many nights I spent writing my journals in my hammock in the screen porch of my parents’ house—my favorite room in any house I have ever been in—my heart and mind exploding in self-discovery and complete happiness. I remember teaching Summer Camp in New York and then roadtripping with my Mom when camp was over. I remember my amazing wedding weekend. I remember the births of my kids. I remember running through the sprinkler, Slip-n-Slides, and all of their birthday parties. I love those memories. They are the highlights of my life. Every last one of them occurred in Summer. It is completely my Season. 

If every day of my life could occur in Summer, I would surely make it so. And while I can understand why some people claim Autumn or Spring as their favorite seasons—let’s be clear: you will never get me to understand the appeal of Winter—I would still take Summer a hundred days out of a hundred. Why can’t it last all year? I can honestly say that I have always felt displaced as a Northerner, as though I somehow landed in the wrong part of the world at birth and have been compelled to remain here. Every year I have a few days when I seriously contemplate moving away from this land of four seasons, most of which feel like Winter to me. I try to make a list of possible destinations with the right combination of warmth, size, safety, and proximity to the ocean or the mountains. No matter how tantalizing the choices seem in the moment, my efforts are futile. The exercise is a pointless one. I am not going anywhere.

There is one and only one reason that I remain in this land of pond-hockey and ice fishing. That reason is called FAMILY. My parents and siblings—and most of my wife’s—are spread across this four-state-wide frozen belt between Montana and Wisconsin, roughly centered around the Western Minnesota lake country where we gather every year (in Summer, of course) to do all the things that make families the most unique and magical human groupings ever assembled.  There is just no substitute. I cannot bring myself to leave them and the possibility of drive-there-in-a-day proximity. I love it when my sisters or my parents pass through town on their way somewhere, giving my kids a chance to see their cousins or grandparents. It truly is the case that all of the highlights of their year are the times with family gathered. I cannot surrender that simply because I want to wear shorts all year.

So, I suppose I have to admit it. I always thought that what defined me best was my bond with Summer, unwavering and unconditional. As it turns out, even Summer loses out to my love of family. What can I say? Alright, but I do have a bone to pick as long as we are talking about family (for the record, I have never had a bone to pick with Summer—well, other than its length). Here is my beef: What the heck were my ancestors thinking when they settled in this frozen tundra, where we get only three months of Summer per year???? Seriously, they could have made my life so much less conflicted if only they had dropped their bags and their tired, poor, huddled (m)asses somewhere much warmer and less topographically-challenged than this. What could possibly have possessed them to put down roots here as opposed to, say, San Diego? But family forgives anything, right? So, I am going to give my ancestors my most forgiving take on this so I don’t have to go on cursing them and the land to which I call home. The only possible explanation for such madness: they arrived in Summer!

How about you? Which season belongs to you? Open up your journal and your memory bank. Make a list of your memories from each season of the year. Does one list stand out to you? Is it the sheer number of memories from that season, or is it the quality of those memories, your fondness for them? What are your favorite memories of Summer? For me, my Summer memories from childhood all seem to be draped in a feeling of freedom, which I suppose comes mostly from the absence of school, but also likely from the warm weather and the liberation from shelter or excess clothing that comes with it. Are your Summer memories that way, draped with an entirely different air about them? Even relationships—namely, a different eagerness to get a “Summer girlfriend”—were different for me in Summer. Was it that way for you? When I was growing up in the ‘70s and ‘80s, parents seemed to give kids very long leashes compared to parents of today. How do you think your Summers would be different if you were growing up with your family today? How has climate affected your lifestyle and where you have chosen to settle? Has it trumped family? Where do you wish your family had settled? Rank your favorite seasons in order. If you could have all of the characteristics of your favorite season all year long—e.g. endless Summer—would you do it? Leave me a reply and let me know: Which season captures your heart and soul the way Summer does mine? 

Be happy,

William

Which Dreams Are The Real Ones?

IMG_2405“Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself. Go forward and make your dreams come true.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hello friend,

At 42 years of age, I can now say that I have been following my dreams for half of my life. Oh sure, when I was little, I wanted to play wide receiver for the Pittsburgh Steelers and be the lead singer for Loverboy. And then I wanted to play on the pro tennis tour. But really, I always knew I was going to be a doctor. Not because I dreamed about it, but because that is what I was told and what I believed. “You are smart. You should be a doctor.” Doctors were the only “rich people” we knew about as kids. They had money and status, so it was the best thing to become if you had the brains for it. I did, so that was what I was going to be when I grew up. It wasn’t a dream; it was a fact. It was my destiny. I never questioned it. Never thought twice about it.

Until I did. Yes, one day in my twenty-first year, as I was working my way through Pre-Med classes, I began to awaken to the idea that other options existed. It was a slow awakening, with each new day finding me feeling more like a stranger in my own skin. It struck me that I was living someone else’s life. I had taken on faith what everyone had told me all along, and I reflected it right back to them, to the point that I really believed it was my dream to be a doctor. Maybe you could say it was society’s dream. Maybe it was my parents’ dream. Maybe it was the dream of the compliant, uncontroversial son and citizen that I had always been. What I woke up to realize was that it wasn’t my dream at all. It was just my plan.

My twenty-first birthday was my last one spent as a full-time planner. After that, I started dreaming. On my twenty-second birthday, I was performing a monologue in an acting class in New York City, after which my Oscar-nominated teacher announced to the class that I was going to be a big star. I finally had a dream, and I was definitely living it! It wasn’t approved by anyone I knew—not my parents, not the culture that I came from, not my old, safe self—but it was completely me. I had taught myself to dream and convinced myself of the absolute necessity of following my dream if I was ever to feel alive and at peace with myself. Following my dreams was my way of being true to myself for the first time. And as frightening as it was, and as much as I felt alone and outcast, I had also never felt more free.

I never stopped dreaming of being an actor (or a big star). I just started dreaming of other things. Eventually, it felt more authentic to me to leave that life. I dreamed of seeing the world, of learning every skill or subject that caught my fancy, of becoming a professor, and of reconnecting with Tennis, my first love. It was a lot of dreaming, a lot of trying to stay true to what stirred my soul.

And then I had my first child. Suddenly, I had no more dreams for myself, but only for her. What I was doing mattered only insomuch as it made things better for her. That only increased when my son was born. My most passionate pursuit was spending every possible moment with them. If I had to be away from them, it was only so I could provide for them. A personal agenda—and dreams, as I knew them—seemed to no longer exist. I disappeared into my kids, and happily so.

A few years later, though, a part of me began to reawaken. Maybe it was the imminence of my 40th birthday, or maybe it was just time to reclaim myself, but suddenly I felt a bit of a panic about making something out of my life. I wanted to feel that stir of excitement in my soul again. I wanted to feel passionate about more than just my children. I wanted to dream. I began to learn more about living my purpose and following my Bliss. I was hooked!

As I searched my soul, the thing that kept coming to me was The Journal Project, something of an autobiography told through my daily journal entries. It spoke to me on many different levels. I was undaunted by the fact that it would take several years to complete. Something inside me knew that I needed to share my unique voice. It was my new dream. I plugged away at it in my very limited “spare time” for over a year, making slow but certain progress and feeling alive inside from feeding the beast.

It wasn’t long, though, before I became impatient to get my voice out there. I could see myself working on my project with great passion and purpose for years, but I wanted to help people immediately. A new dream was born, and it was named “Journal of You.” As instantly gratifying as Journal of You became, its unfortunate side effect was diminished time for The Journal Project, which was definitely still a big dream. I felt as though I was betraying it, and I began to feel torn. I eventually rationalized my dissonance away by determining to make a book out of these posts that would serve as a companion piece to The Journal Project. All of my writing would become part of the bigger dream. I liked that.

Meanwhile, all of this pursuit of my dreams was having a ripple effect across my life. I decided that my “day job” must become more fulfilling and fit into my life purpose and my dreams. To that end, I began my Life Coaching courses, determined to change lives more directly and deeply. It was wonderful and right up my alley, but the unfortunate side effect reappeared: I had to put The Journal Project on hold altogether to fit my course work in along with the blog posts and the rest of life. Bummer!

Then, as if I wasn’t busy and torn enough, I added my skin care consulting business to the mix. Admittedly, I have never harbored a skin care dream—though it actually fulfills me to help other people feel better about themselves–but rather the dream of one day being my own boss. This is where the hard line between a dream and a plan becomes a little murky. I definitely dream of one day becoming self-employed. It suits my personality perfectly. But self-employment is a concept. To get there, I need a plan. It has been clear to me from the start that this is where my skin care consulting fits in. It is the means to the end that is my dream of being self-employed.

Until this week, I didn’t realize that my Life Coaching business might also fit into the same category. I love coaching people. It excites me to partner with people in the pursuit of their dreams and to help them create their version of a more fulfilling life. Sounds kind of like a dream job, right? I thought so.

Then this week, I had a rare window of time after my kids went to sleep, and I spotted my notebooks and journal from The Journal Project gathering dust in the corner of my desk. It had been ages since I had last worked on it, those notebooks losing their spot in favor of homework assignments and other tasks. My soul and curiosity were stirred. I opened them up and read a few pages. Excitement brewed. I popped open my computer and started to type. I was transported back in time to the days when writing—specifically The Journal Project–was my dream du jour. Intoxicated by the work, I pounded away at the keys at a feverish pace. When bedtime came, my adrenaline was still pumping. It was a real treat. The next night, when I had a few minutes to spare, I ran down to my desk and sneaked a few more passages in, my heart beating like I was getting away with something. It lit me up inside. It was clearly the calling of my soul. My whole system was reinvigorated by it. In that moment, it was obvious to me what was, amongst all of these other pursuits, my real dream.

A couple of years ago, when my mind was coming back to life and reminding me of the need to pursue my passions, I subscribed to a blog by Mastin Kipp called “The Daily Love.” One day, as part of a promotion, he issued a video in which he was the subject of an interview. At the end, the interviewer asked him, “If you could leave your readers just one thing, what would it be?” He turned from the interviewer and looked directly into the camera and said something to the effect of, “SCREW PLAN B! Go all-in on Plan A! Life is too short to do anything but follow your Bliss. Live your dream!” Every hair on my body stood on end. He was speaking directly to me, and it resonated deeply. That memory returned to me this week after working on my Journal Project. Coincidence? I think not!

So, I suppose I have to admit that my skin care business—and yes, even my Life Coaching business—are in the Plan B category. They are just that: plans. They are ways to make enough money (while being self-employed) so I can spend more time writing. Writing is Plan A, also known as “my dream.” I understand that everything is not going to be given to me just because I am passionate about it. I also understand that I will have to earn the time by being more successful at my Plan Bs. Finally, I understand that I haven’t worked hard enough or long enough at my dream to make any demands upon the gods. My head understands all of that. My heart and soul, on the other hand, just don’t get it. It pains me deeply that I am not allowed to work full-time at Plan A. It is my calling, after all. Don’t The Fates understand? Can Destiny not see the injustice in denying me this? Apparently not. This is why artists have patrons. Because they cannot stomach denying themselves their passions and having to work at the tasks that everyone else does. Ah well. I understand that I must earn my way to my full-time dream job by slogging away at the Plan Bs for a while. My consolation is that I love my Plan Bs. Sure, they don’t stir the passions of my soul as much as writing does, but they are still meaningful and fulfilling in their own ways. Onward I go, dreaming every step of the way.

How about you? How have your dreams panned out? Open up your journal and uncover the depth of the dreams from the many phases of your life? What did you dream about when you were a little kid? Were you just pretending, or did you really believe you would become those things? At what age did you let them go? Was it gradually or instantly? How about your dreams from college or early adulthood? Were you making plans or dreams still at that age? If you were dreaming, how long did the dreams last? Do you still have the same dreams? How many have come true? If you know those dreams are still there but you squashed them in favor of more practical things, do you recall the moment when you decided to settle for less, or was it a slow and imperceptible slide? When was the last time you had a new dream? How did it make you feel? How passionately did you pursue it? How do you feel when you write about your old dreams and things you have settled for? It brings up a lot of shame and disappointment in me, which I am trying to use as motivation to stay focused and more true to myself going forward. How far off is your current career from your dream job? Is your job more of a plan or a dream? How acceptable is it to you to work your plan for a while to set yourself up for your dream? What percentage of people actually get to the dream part? Are you going to be one of them? Leave me a reply and let me know: Which dreams are you following?

Dare to be amazing,

William

Taking a Moment to Say “Thanks!” Instead of “Please???”

IMG_2404“We should certainly count our blessings, but we should also make our blessings count.” –Neal A. Maxwell

Hello friend,

“DEAR GOD, I WANNA TAKE A MINUTE, NOT TO ASK FOR ANYTHING FROM YOU, BUT SIMPLY TO SAY THANK YOU FOR ALL I HAVE. –SHARE IF YOU ARE THANKFUL”

This was the first meme that popped up on my Facebook Home page this morning when I was laying in bed. For whatever reason, I instantly felt guilty. I suppose I am no different than most folks who have grown up with the concept—whether through our parents and grandparents, or, more likely, just too much television and movies—of God as wish-granter. We pray for our team to win, for our friends to travel safely, for our child to make the team, and for ourselves to get that new job. We ask our Higher Power for that stuff. We usually ask nicely, too, starting most requests with “Please God….” Even if we didn’t grow up in a very religious family, the God-as-wish-granter theme permeates our culture. If we really, really want something, we ask God. We call it prayer. 

I don’t pray a lot. Well, not in the traditional, down-on-my-knees-at-bedtime kind of praying. It is probably because my concept of God is a little different than the usual one (see my post “Who Is God?” from December 2015). I believe deeply in God as All There Is, including you and me. I believe that all of the Universe is Divine. This doesn’t mean that I am not allowed to pray; it just changes the context of the conversation a bit. You might even say it makes a prayer out of everything I think, say, or do. When I have my occasional direct words aimed at God as seemingly something outside of me—what most folks would recognize as my nearest thing to traditional prayer—it definitely is all about gratitude. I don’t make direct requests. I give direct thanks, usually for a simple but beautiful moment where the Divine just seems to permeate every bit of the moment. More often than not, it is when I am either observing Nature’s beauty or watching my kids be the miraculous little creatures that they are. Sometimes it simply overwhelms my heart, and I just whisper, “Thanks, God.” Those are my conversations with God.

Even though traditional prayer is a rarity for me, because of my worldview that holds everything as fully God, it may be reasonable to conclude from that that all of my thoughts, words, and deeds are a form of communication with God. When I hear of a religious extremist’s story of withholding medical treatment from their suffering child, preferring instead to “leave it in God’s hands,” I usually find myself shouting at the screen, “But YOU are God, and so is the DOCTOR and the MEDICINE! Please pray, of course, but DO SOMETHING! To not try to save your child is actually taking it out of God’s hands, not the other way around! Your hands are God’s hands!!!” I know that is not how everyone sees things, but my view shapes my perceptions.

With that said, and if my thoughts and actions are my form of communication with God, then I am totally guilty of making my prayers into Wish Lists rather than Thank You Notes. Almost always I am in STRIVING mode. I am thinking about or doing something that is about me striving for something else. Something more. Something better. I am trying to get out of this situation and into one that speaks more truly to who I am and what my dreams are. I can be pretty single-minded about it, too. The translation of this—given my concept of God—is essentially that I am not grateful for where I am and I want to get out of here. In regular prayer terms: “Please God, rescue me and bring me the type of success I desire!”

That is the source of the quick jolt of guilt I received when I read that Facebook post this morning. It hits me on a parallel to the way it hits other people, even though we pray differently. I am just as guilty as making my prayer a request rather than a “Thank You.” Seeing that more clearly now is a great reminder for me to become more about the NOW. It means that I can, even in the midst of my striving for better and more, become more fully present and aware of all the wonderful gifts in my life as I now know it. I think of the health of my family, which has been really, amazingly good throughout my life (knocking on my desk right now!). I think of my convenient work schedule and the corresponding opportunity to spend so much time with my kids. I think of my ability to share my words with you and others all over the world. I think of all the freedoms I have because I live in America, and all the comforts I enjoy—clean water, safety, a warm home of my own, to name a few—as a middle-class member of this society. These are all things well worthy of my deep and abiding gratitude, and not just once in a while. To fail to become more aware of these fabulous gifts—and thus more consistently grateful—would be a show of immense disrespect to my beautiful life and the magnificence of the God I believe in.

It doesn’t have to mean that I must stop striving to improve my life and the world around me, however. Even in my haste to improve myself and my station, I can still acknowledge and honor the wonder of the gifts I am presently living with. The concepts of Striving and Gratitude do not have to be mutually exclusive. They don’t have to compete with each other. So, I can take time to step out of my actions—the bulk of which are Striving things—to say “THANK YOU,” which is a Being thing. I can be both grateful and ambitious. I can say prayers of thanks and do acts of ambition. Oh yeah, and I should probably take a few moments to just sit and BE. To stop thinking and striving. To just ENJOY. That sounds like it would be okay, too. I am pretty sure God is in that silence, too. I will meet Her there.

How about you? How do you pray? Open up your journal and think about your relationship with your Higher Power. What is the tone of most of your communication? Are you usually there to ask or to thank? What do you ask for? Big, general things, like world peace or an end to hunger? Or smaller, specific things, like your blind date to go well or the weather to be nice? Do you feel guilty asking for things for yourself? If everything you do is actually a prayer about how you want your world to be, what is your lifestyle saying about what you desire the most? Are your actions more grounded in the present, or are you like me and often focused on building your someday? How often do you consciously thank your Higher Power, for either your life in general or a specific stroke of good fortune? Do you believe in a God that picks and chooses which prayers to answer, which wishes to grant? Do you think that showing more gratitude would make God more likely to answer your prayers? On a spectrum from All Requests to All Thanks, where do you land regarding your conversations with God? Leave me a reply and let me know: What are you grateful for today?  

Personify abundance in all you do,

William

A Mother’s Son: My Favorite Memories of Mom

 

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“But behind all your stories is your mother’s story, because hers is where yours begin.”  –Mitch Albom

Hello friend,

I am a Momma’s boy. I admit it. Totally and completely. Guilty as charged.

My older brothers were always great at being my Dad’s boys.   They had the same interests, and their personalities fit together just right to make that manly-man relationship dynamic work. Even today, they are always on—or planning—some hunting or fishing expedition together, or telling stories about the last one. It is neat to watch them together and feel that kinship, that bond. I love how it works, even if I am relegated to watching it. Some circles, it seems, are not meant to expand. Our affinities cannot be forced. A square peg doesn’t fit into a round hole. Momma’s boys don’t make it onto the crew at Deer Camp.

But, Momma’s boys do get to share an indescribable, unbreakable bond with their mothers that is unlike any other. And, in addition to that special connection, they get to share a journey. They do LIFE together. They follow each other in spirit, because that is their destiny; it’s how they are wired. But the luckiest pairs get to actually ride along with each other in person, making beautiful memories as they go. I have had that lucky ride with my Mom.

I actually have a difficult time thinking of many specific moments with my mother, because she just seemed to always be there. She was at the helm on so many family roadtrips that were jam-packed with one happy memory after another. She was with me at every tennis match in every little town tournament I ever played in, all of which I remember. She has helped me pack and move my stuff all over the country on my long and winding path through this life, always supporting me. She has traversed the highways and byways of America with me as an adult—from Gettysburg to Glacier–always in search of new ways to educate me about our history and this great land. In these years when my mind and my life have seemed to be all over the map, my sweet and tireless Mom has been my faithful companion. My rock. The memories of my beautiful life begin and end with her.

What do I remember? Well, beyond my childhood days of uninterrupted love and wonder in her care, there are a few days and moments that stand out for me in our adult relationship. [Writer’s Note: It is really, really cool to get to be best friends with your Mom when you grow up, even while feeling that you will always, always be her little boy.] These are a few of my favorites:

When I decided it was time for me to leave Los Angeles in favor of wandering around Europe and figuring out what was next in life, my Mom, of course, got in the car and drove down from North Dakota to help me lug my stuff home (did I forget to mention that she is a saint, too?). On our way back, we stopped in Montana to see my brother for the night. We scooped him up in town and headed out to find a campsite in the wilds of that majestic land. He led us to a quiet, solitary spot along the river in a place that was aptly named Paradise Valley. I remember sitting on the river’s edge writing in my journal as my brother artfully casted his fly over the water, my mother looking on proudly. It was beautiful in every way. Later in the evening, we cooked dinner and told stories over a campfire, which invariably gives a conversation an air of simple Truth and authenticity. It was me and two of my most favorite people on Earth. It comforted me to know how much my Mom enjoyed spending that time with us. I felt pure there in Paradise with her.

A few years later, after wandering a bit but mostly secluding myself in my parents’ house to read and write, I decided to move (again) to Ohio to get my doctoral degree. I had also fallen in love and was going to be living in the same place as my girlfriend rather than across the country from one another. It was an enormous psychological leap for me to leave the friendly confines of my childhood home after a few years of holing up there in complete Bliss. It was probably comparable to my first day of kindergarten. Thankfully, in both cases, my Mom was there. She, of course, trailed me in my stuffed car as I rocked the UHaul cross-country for the umpteenth time. I remember standing there with her in the parking lot of my new apartment as she was about to head back home and leave me there to start my new life. We had just had the gift of a magical window of a few years to hang out and know each other as adults—a gift that very few parents and children receive–and now it was all ending, likely never to return. The gravity of that life-door closing was palpable. It had been an amazing ride. Through my tears, I said to her, “I feel like I am saying goodbye to my best friend.” I was.

Several years later, I found myself in a hospital room on a warm August night, dialing the phone with tears (again) rolling down my face. Following years of effort and heartbreak, I finally had a baby of my own. My angel, India. Since having the reins turned over to her by my Mom that day in Ohio, my wife had grown to understand the special nature of my relationship with my mother. I didn’t have to fight too hard to be allowed to give my first-born child the middle name of Jacqueline, after her grandmother, my Mom. I wouldn’t have had it any other way. So there I was on the phone that night, a tidal wave of emotions on an exposed nerve as I prepared to tell her the news. When I told her we had just had a baby girl, of course she asked what her name was. I could barely choke out the words, knowing how much the namesake meant to me and how much it would mean to her. There was a short silence on the line after I told her, as it seemed she had momentarily lost her breath. That moment was pure LOVE. It was every bit of my timeless, perfect connection to my Mom, only now it was cloaked in an all-new layer. This was the legacy, the next generation of a special relationship full of a lifetime of special memories.

I can only hope to be half the parent to India Jacqueline and her brother that my mother has been to me. I dream about the trips I want to take them on, to places I only know about because my Mom took me. I pray that I can be the friend to them that she is to me, the one they want to traverse the roads of Life with and share their proudest moments with. I hope that one day in the distant future—maybe when they have kids of their own—that they will look back fondly on the memories they made with their old man along the way, wishing they could pass on those same kind of memories and feel that same kind of special closeness. That would do my heart good. I will teach them well about the one who started this magical chain. My Mom. Thanks for the memories…..

How about you? What special memories do you have of your mother? Open up your journal and your heart, and write about the moments with her that have shaped you and stayed with you. What are your favorite moments? Are they big things, like trips or major events, or tiny, simple moments when everything is right just because Mom was there? What are the best adventures you have been on with your mother? What are your favorite intimate moments with your Mom, when it was just the two of you? Which memories that you have with her would you like to pass on to the next generation? What do you appreciate most about what your mother has brought to your life? Does she know how grateful you are? Maybe today is the day to let her know. Leave me a reply and let me know: What is your favorite memory of your mother?

Thank a Mom today,

William

The Facebook ‘Friends’ You Wish Were Your Real Friends

IMG_1091“If you hang out with chickens, you’re going to cluck, and if you hang out with eagles, you’re going to fly.” –Steve Maraboli

Hello friend,

I don’t do a very good job of making friends. I am introverted, so I don’t seek out social situations. I am also a bit shy, so I am not very chatty and outgoing when I do meet new people. I would say I am courteous but not engaging. Some—or all—of that may be due to the fact that I have an inherent disgust for small-talk. It tends to make my skin crawl. It is, by its very nature, superficial. I don’t do superficial well at all. I prefer to either dive right into a meaningful interaction or be ignored altogether.

With all that, it should come as no surprise that I didn’t do high school very well when it came to reputation. I had my group of close friends, no doubt, but most people thought I was “stuck-up,” our word for arrogant and just generally thinking you are better than everyone else. I don’t deny that there was some of that in the mix, but, at this distance of almost 25 years, it is clear to me that most of my reputation stemmed from my innate repulsion to all things petty and superficial, most notably small-talk. Unfortunately, that encompasses the bulk of the high school experience outside of your closest friend group. I just didn’t have it in me to pretend to be everyone’s best friend. A small but true handful was all my nature could handle. It still is.

Sadly, in addition to not being a good maker of friends, I am also a very poor keeper of friends. Well, at least in the usual sense. I am terrible at staying in touch: making the call, sending the birthday card, getting to the class reunion, or setting up the boys weekend. As a result, I have basically lost touch with almost all of my best friends. That doesn’t feel so good. On the other side of it, I still consider all of my best high school buddies to be my best friends, contact or not. I still value them like I did when we were together every day and would still do anything for them. They are my boys, and that is that. In my head! Maybe they are like the ghosts I wrote to you about last time, their relationship with me existing perfectly in my head only. Maybe they have either forgotten about me or allowed the passage of time to lessen their love for me in a way that my heart simply doesn’t operate.

My heart and my head seem to be like vaults. What was once placed there is secure forever. Perhaps that is something of a curse, though, lulling me into thinking I do not have to work to maintain those relationships just because I feel the same way about my loved ones that I always have. It is probably the case that while I am silently moving on with these timeless feelings, the other side is moving on to new relationships that more clearly and consistently reveal themselves. I hold onto ghosts of friendships past and don’t seek out new ones, figuring I am all set in the best friend department. Like I said, for better or worse, it is my nature to have only a few of the best kind and almost none of the superficial.

With all that said, it will probably come as no surprise to you that I was one of the last, stubborn holdouts of the Facebook era. I heard people sing its praises for years and years and still had no interest in trying it. For one, it just sounded so time-consuming. I pictured everyone sitting around writing little notes about themselves all day and couldn’t imagine myself having the time or interest to do that. Granted, I had never actually seen a Facebook page, but this is how I imagined it. And second—and most important to our discussion today—was my complete distaste for the idea that people were writing and sharing these notes with people they weren’t really friends with. Why in the world would you become “friends” with someone who was never your true friend, who you just knew in the superficial high school way? This concept was absolutely beyond my comprehension and seemingly totally contrary to my nature. Facebook and I, it seemed, would never become friends.

So it went for years and years, until I finally created “Journal of You” and needed a way to tell people about my posts every week. My sister suggested I join Facebook and connect with some old friends and relatives to at least share it with them. So, I reluctantly signed up for an account. BOOM! Blast after blast came flooding from the past! Suddenly I was seeing the faces of my high school—even elementary school–classmates who had completely disappeared from my life more than 20 years before. Some were friends then, some barely acquaintances.

Initially, I told myself that I would just connect with them for the purpose of the blog, as the entire exercise seemed extremely awkward to me. Much to my surprise, however, instead of being repulsed by the idea of becoming “friends” with these characters from my past, I became quite tickled by discovering all about their new lives. As a voracious learner, I delighted in studying their posts to meet their families and friends, and also to learn about their pastimes and passions. My wife had many occasions to roll her eyes as I sounded like a great-grandpa musing, “This Facebook thing is REALLY COOL!”

It wasn’t long before I developed a minor addiction, making it a habit to catch up on my Newsfeed each night. It was during this time that I confirmed my long-held concern that Facebook could take up a lot of time. To counter that, though, were the warm feelings that stemmed from making the kind of modern-day connections that come from “likes” and comments on posts. It was so cool to get a like on a blog post from someone in my Advanced Algebra class or a happy comment from one of my pals from fifth grade. In the midst of my otherwise-unsocial existence, where I hardly speak to anyone outside of my house, here I was being touched with a little sense of community. I was simultaneously surprised and thrilled by it. Hence, “This Facebook thing is REALLY COOL!” 

Other than the simple delight of these little moments of cyber-connection, my big “A-HA!” from my year or so on Facebook is that, in following all of these “friends,” I have come to wish that some of them actually would be my friends. Real friends. Human ones, not electronic ones. In following people’s posts in my daily check of the Newsfeed, I feel like I have gotten a real sense of how some people are (or at least how I imagine them to be). Some of it is the articles, videos, or memes that they share. Some of it is what they write about their experience of the world. Some of it is their family photos and captions. Those things are very intriguing to me. The rest comes from what they like or comment on from my posts, as I am very sensitive to that.

The end result is that I have this handful of people that I feel a real affinity to, who I would very much like to be put in the same room with for a few days to see if we would save the world somehow, or at least become true friends. I am not talking about people that were my best friends before but we somehow lost touch along the way. No, I am talking about people who I either hardly knew at all, knew only when we were young kids, or were only somewhat friendly with but hardly thought of making the effort to keep tabs on. Now, however, through the magic of Facebook, I wish these “friends” were my friends. They are:

  • Stephanie—I honestly have no recollection of any level of friendship with her in high school–no specific memories at all—but now I find her an inspiration and a delight. I love all of the stuff she posts about, and she says nice things about my kids’ pictures (the easy way to get on this list!). She is thoroughly positive, which is endlessly appealing to me.
  • John—I think I last heard from him in seventh grade and were on okay terms before that, but I love the specific comments he has made on my posts, and I like the energy of his.
  • Susan—We were decent friends in high school, but I haven’t seen her since. She posts a lot about parenting her brood of kids, one who has special needs. I love the honesty with which she shares, and no matter how funny or self-deprecating the story is, I can feel the gratitude oozing from my screen. I can just tell that she is an awesome parent and role model.
  • Jillian—She is actually not a school friend but a second cousin and much younger than I, who I mostly knew when she was a little kid. She fits in here because I now love following her posts as a mother of a little one. It is so clear how much she appreciates her life and the gift of parenthood.
  • Kassie—This one is not a childhood acquaintance but rather someone who I crossed paths with a few times through work many years ago. Now, I absolutely LOVE following her story, which includes overcoming the deepest grief, battling to be healthy, and finding love and peace wherever you are. She is an amazing inspiration to me from afar. Then, once in a while, she sneaks me a little comment that never fails to lift me up.

There are others, of course, that make me very grateful that I finally joined the modern world and Facebook. The common themes that hook me and make me wish we could all get together in one room seem to be gratitude and positivity. These people are a wonderful reminder of what I need to be better at delivering to the people in my own world, both on Facebook and to the flesh-and-blood humans I meet and know. I want it to be clear from everything I say, write, and do. In the end, I just want to be the kind of guy that someone would want to be friends with.

How about you? Are there people in your world—real or cyber—that you would like to be real friends with? Open up your journal and make a list of them. From what part of your life do they come? High school? Work acquaintances? Relatives? What is it about each of them that you are drawn to? Is there a common theme—like my gratitude and positivity—or does each appeal to you for different reasons? How good of a job have you done at staying in touch with your friends from the different stages of your life? Have the relationships that have faded over the years done so for good reason? Are you like me and maintain the same feelings and faithfulness to people no matter how much time passes, or do your relationships fade in your heart with the passage of time? What role has Facebook played in rekindling your old relationships? Do you use it mostly as a voyeur, or do you post and comment often as well to share your story? Have you discovered people whose posts and comments you are very much drawn to, who you would like to become true friends with even though you never were before? How odd does that seem to you? How great? I love to discover something new and wonderful, especially in a person. How about you? Leave me a reply and let me know: Who are the Facebook “friends” you would like to become real friends with, and why?

Be unabashedly YOU,

William

The ONE That Got Away?

DSC_0227“The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.” –C.G. Jung

Hello friend,

This is a ghost story.

Where do I begin? When I was 21 and just in the early stages of my acting/exploring the world/discovering myself period, I met an amazing young woman named Alex. And I mean young. She was 18, but, somehow, instead of spending her last few months of high school hanging around her schoolmates and partying, she was working out and hanging out with a bunch of twenties-and-thirtysomethings, including me. We were friends at first, as I was casually dating someone else at the time. When that fling ended and she and I continued to spend time together, I grew to realize that there was something deep and magical about her.

She was not at all like the other women I knew. For one, she was incredibly intelligent. She was fiercely independent. She was one of those “old souls” that made it seem completely natural for her to be good friends with a fortyish guy I knew. There was some pain there, too. She also had an intriguing combination of honesty and distance. She protected herself, even as she was vulnerable. It was a tricky combination to unlock, to say the least. But I admired her greatly, anyway. She oozed potential. I sensed that I would one day hear news of her curing cancer or leading a team of Doctors Without Borders that saved an entire ravaged province in Africa. I was impressed in advance.

The thing about that kind of potential when it intersects with precisely her age in a lifetime is that there is no track record. No history of “Oh, this is how you are and what you do, so I know exactly what you will be doing five years from now, too.” Real grown-up relationships often end with each party knowing just what to expect of the other’s future. There is enough film on them to know their tendencies. But when you are 18 and loaded with talent and depth, there is simply no limit. You can write your own ticket. It is like when space travel first became a real possibility. With no history and with potential to burn, it is bottled PROMISE. It is a degree of HOPE that leaves you breathless. It is, in a word, exciting.

It was during my short time of knowing Alex that I was given my very first journal by a common acquaintance. I was only writing about once a week then and quite briefly, but I am now completely enthralled as I look back on those initial entries. Even when I was dating someone else, I never failed to mention how fascinating and wonderful my friend Alex was. Eventually those entries come to the spot where there was only her in my thoughts, and we were a couple. A combustible mix of two characters protecting their hearts but still caring fiercely about the other, all the while knowing that we were headed in two very different directions. We were a classic case of two star-crossed lovers. Neither Time nor Destiny was on our side. I wanted to be a movie star and anywhere bigger and brighter than where we were, and she would be heading off to college before long and curing the world of its ills. It was a love that could not be.

I had my future of stardom on my mind and jumped at the first chance to leave town. So, instead of spending a Summer of Love with her, I put the fortress around my heart and said goodbye. I told myself that the writing was on the wall for us anyway, that we had a good handful of weeks and that a few more months was not going to change the end of the story. I chose the head over the heart. Or, rather, I chose my dreams of stardom over a possible love story. She even came to visit me for a day that Summer, and I had a very hard time letting her in. At first, I kept her at a real distance because I could not let it go on. It was only later, shortly before she left, that I realized—after all of our protecting ourselves early in our relationship and my firm resolve that we must cut the cord completely, no long-term relationships—that I really, truly loved her. I finally let myself feel that, if only briefly. It was like putting a giant weight down. I loved someone amazing. Someone who was going to set the world on fire with her brilliance. For a magic moment, I let my guard down and allowed that bottled PROMISE to enter my heart and carve its initials there.

And then she was gone. That was it. Never to be heard from again. We didn’t keep in touch. I kept on chasing my dreams across the country and across oceans. And she……….??? I have no answers. I have a million questions and even more visions of what she might have been doing all these years—the people she has touched, the wonderful places she has visited, the diseases she has cured—but they are only visions. Apparitions. She has truly become a ghost for me.

I don’t know why I never took pains to keep up with her or track her down. I never thought we would ever be together again—romantically speaking–so I wasn’t pining in that way. But that POTENTIAL. That bottled PROMISE. That HOPE. To simply follow her life story seems like reason enough for me to have kept connected, even once in a blue moon. But no. Nothing. Not a call. Not a letter. Nothing. I cannot explain my actions.

What I am left with is a ghost. An apparition of who she is. A vision of what she has done. And even a “what if” about an epic love story that might have been if our paths had crossed in a different place and time. It is the kind of stuff that an imagination can go wild with, or that can turn a sane mind insane. There is so much to dream about, so many holes to fill, both in the story and in the heart. Lots of wondering.

It has taken on a life of its own, I suppose, as the years have piled on top of one another. The ghost becomes the thing, perhaps a bigger thing than there ever was in the physical world. I had but a few months to know her and even less to love her. And now, on the other side of the scale from those few months is 21 YEARS! Years of myth-building and monument-making. Based on what? My belief in her potential. In her inner beauty and future greatness. She is immortalized for me the way James Dean and Marilyn Monroe are for others. Dying young does that to you. We only remember the best and imagine what might have been. That is my Alex. Bottled PROMISE. Forever a ghost, made sacred by potential and the sands of time.

Until now.

Yes, earlier this week, I was doing a work assignment of trying to connect to old acquaintances by sending friend requests on Facebook. I was only thinking of people from the last few years. When I finished the task, which had me feeling nostalgic for old friends, I decided to see if anyone existed from my past lives. I searched a few people from the old acting days in California without much luck. Then it hit me: my ghost! Why had I never thought of it before? Honestly, it took me a minute to get up the nerve to type her name. I just wasn’t prepared to see her, as she had existed only in my mind for over 20 years. And then, there she was. Photographic evidence of a real person. I was completely sucked in, of course, checking out her posts of her dog and her recent wedding. But I was also unnerved by it. Worlds were colliding, and it was a bit overwhelming.

I could not bring myself to send her a friend request. It was like it would be an invasion of something that existed magically in another dimension. Making us real adults that had moved on would violate that sacred space. Only later in the evening, when I reminded myself that she was a big piece of me somehow and that this is my one life and that I would actually love to hear her life story someday, did I go back and send her that request. I couldn’t tell if I had just ruined the whole thing or not, but the ghost was now actually haunting me. It occupied my mind and kept me always on edge when I turned on my phone or computer, ever wondering if my request would be answered. After a day had passed, I felt a little relieved that she hadn’t accepted it. Maybe I was a ghost in her life, too, and she preferred me that way. She was going to protect the sanctity of our otherworldly arrangement. I appreciated that.

After another full day passed, however, my heart stopped when I saw that she had accepted. With the dye now cast, I knew I had to reach out and see what the conclusion to our story would be. Not wanting to sound like the crazy stalker but still needing to be honest, I sent a note to tell her that I had always held her in the highest regard and believed that, with all of her talents, she would somehow save the world. I told her that if she ever wanted to meet up and tell me her life story, I would love to hear it. And if not, I wished her all the best. It was my Truth, and I sent it with a clear mind. And then, I waited. There were a million different ways that note could land with someone who hadn’t heard from me in 21 years and with whom I had no idea where I stood in her heart or mind, so I was totally on the edge of my seat. I wasn’t sure if it was excitement or dread. Finally, this morning, the response came. And the ghost story kind of ended.

It turned out sort of the way I intuited it when my first impulse on seeing her Facebook page was to leave it at that and not send the message. It was more romantic and mysterious when it was a creation of my mind. I could wonder forever in the ethereal haze of “What if…” Now I know that she has not cured cancer—though she is a nurse—and that she has only a vague recollection of our time together. Sure, that stings the ego a little bit (or a lot). But it is also fascinating to me, a guy who loves to study the human experience and the way our minds can choose to interpret our world. I caught a glimpse of someone for a handful of weeks, when every possibility in the world was before her, and I immortalized her there. She was my James Dean. For her, it seems, I was a happy moment in her life, but like most moments, soon forgotten. We were two ships passing in the night.

And so, my 21-year fantasy comes to an end. The bubble has burst. With the reality just a few hours old, I cannot say for sure if I regret searching her name on Facebook. I felt enriched by the fantasy all these years, so grateful was I that I got a brief glimpse at Greatness before it became Greatness. That felt good, like I had a secret window that no one else ever would. And really, I did. It doesn’t, in the end, matter if she cures cancer or prevents a nuclear crisis. Like all of us mortals, she is and always will be magic and Divine. And special. We can count ourselves lucky in this lifetime if someone sees all of that in us. But that part is not up to us, as I learned by this experiment.

I learned something else, though, too. I learned that it is perhaps an even greater gift to see that magic, that beauty, that bottled PROMISE in someone else. It is like being able to see through God’s eyes. It’s amazing, truly. Maybe my Divine vision could only sustain for this long because, after my brief glimpse, the vision was only in my mind. It was a ghost, an apparition that I could beckon in its purest form at my whim. It is hard to maintain that Divine point-of-view day after day in the real world, when that person is disagreeing with you about finances or leaving wet towels on the floor. The mind’s eye is more forgiving.

So yeah, as I process this whole thing right now and my fantasy gives way to reality, I really am grateful for this ghost that was my ghost. Today’s reality check just reminds me of what I wasn’t so aware of before: that the ghost was good for me. That the Hope was a gift. That tiny window in my lifetime is a beautiful memory for me and planted a seed far greater. She isn’t the one that got away after all. No, she is the one that will stay with me forever in that Divine form, a beautiful reminder of an important lesson. This ghost story has a happy ending after all. I’m keeping her! The ghost and I will live happily ever after……The End.

How about you? Do you have a ghost that you have lived with? Open up your journal and tell your story. Who was your ghost to you? A lover? A friend? A family member? How long did your actual relationship last before it existed only in your mind? Why did it end? Do you feel badly about the way it ended? What role does potential play in this person becoming your ghost? Are you like me and wonder how this person lived her life and changed the world with her gifts? Or is it about the potential relationship you might have had, the epic love you might have shared? Do you believe that your ghost is really “the one” for you, in the romantic sense? Do you think your ghost is somewhere feeling the same way about you? Why is the person still a ghost? Have you ever tried to track him down? What is stopping you? Is it safer just to keep him in your mind, where you get to control the vision? Who is the one person in your history that you would most like to sit down with and hear their life story? Leave me a reply and let me know: Who is the ONE that got away from you?

Love heals,

William

What About TODAY?

IMG_1176“Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. But today is a gift. That is why they call it ‘the present’.”

Hello friend,

I have lately been consumed with laying the foundational pieces for my SOMEDAY. I have been busying myself with business plans, launch events, marketing strategies, and brainstorms for future books. The prize that my eyes have been focused on is the giant impact I want my life to make on this world. My whole, long life. I envision it as a big body of work that, over the long haul, positively impacts lots of people. With that recently-acquired long-haul perspective, my actions have been mostly future-oriented. There is a lot of “this will make the next stuff easier” and “keep my nose to the grindstone until I get established” in my thought patterns. Lots of process.

Of course, I understand that operating with a vision of how I want my future to be is essential to working toward that vision more efficiently. I know that I have to keep my eyes on the prize. Big goals are important motivational tools, and they help to put in perspective why it is worth all the hard work. If I don’t remain clear about my dreams and how much they mean to me, I could start sliding again. I don’t want that. I don’t ever want to live by default again, not questioning what I am doing and why. No, from here on out, I am living by design. That is my plan. Thus, I must keep the grand design front and center. That is how I have been operating lately: big picture, full life, long-range plan. Building the foundation.

I have been commending myself pretty regularly in my daily journal entries for doing a good job of chipping away at these big rocks, grinding to get them rolling toward a brighter future. I have stayed on task quite well. After all, many of the things I have been doing—government paperwork, marketing, and building websites, for example—are not at all the kind of work I love to do or that get me out of bed in the morning. Thus, as I said, I have been trying to applaud myself as often as possible for doing these tedious and uncomfortable tasks for the sake of my SOMEDAY. For the sake of my dreams. For the sake of the big life I am trying to live. It is all about the future. I applaud myself in order to make this grinding phase more palatable, hopeful that it will all pay off and that my SOMEDAY shows up sooner rather than later.

But then today, while writing in my journal, I started thinking about “the precious present” as it relates to enjoying this special time with my kids. I know that they will grow up in the blink of an eye. Rather than lament that fact and try to cling to something that cannot be stopped, the best thing I can do is to live completely in each moment, keeping my heart and mind in the present to soak up as much of this love and innocence as possible. Be present! The kids make that so obvious. It is why kids do life so well. They stay in the moment.

Of course, being present is something I have preached about so many times over the years. In all of my most serious spiritual and philosophical writings, it is plain that I am a big believer in the precious present. There is no greater gift you can give to yourself than to BE HERE NOW. That is why I have long been a big proponent of meditation and yoga, which encourage just that. I have used it countless times on the tennis court in helping students—and myself—handle pressure-packed match situations. I encourage it with my Life Coaching clients. Indeed, it is how I prepare for coaching sessions to serve my clients best: I center myself in the present. It is where Life works best.

And this is the realization that made me stop and think today as I was writing my journal. In writing about the value of the present, it suddenly struck me how many of my recent thoughts and actions have been not about the present, but instead about the future. I have forsaken my todays in favor of that elusive SOMEDAY. How can I justify this? Is it acceptable? Am I being hypocritical? How did I lose my way? How do I find my way back to the present? I need some clarity.

Of course, my first reaction when I am told that I am wrong—even by myself—is defense. My first justification is that at least I am not stuck in the past. I think that is much less healthy than focusing on the future. Next, I fall back on the age-old question: how does one remain present and living for today while also being mindful of building a better life for himself and pursuing his dreams? In other words, how do you balance stopping to smell the roses while planning to till them up to plant cucumbers and carrots? I honestly don’t know the right answer to that question. As I said at the beginning, I think it is important to know where you are trying to go in this life, to understand what your purpose is and how you plan to live out that purpose in a way that fulfills you. You have to look ahead sometimes!

Even with that justification, the thought of being stuck in the too-distant future continued to nag at me. Perhaps I have taken the justification too far lately in my quest to launch my businesses and the future of my dreams. I forgot to keep a balance between making the best of today and planning for that even better tomorrow. So I challenged myself: What is one thing I can do today to make TODAY better? What can I improve on from yesterday, for the sake of TODAY? Sure, it could be good for me tomorrow, too, but the point is to get better for NOW. No groundwork-laying. No SOMEDAY book outline or business plan. What habit could help me today?

After brainstorming my countless faults and shortcomings, I decided that the one thing I am really going to make an effort to do today is to be more friendly and outgoing with strangers. I am terrible at this! I mind my own business and use manners, but I don’t put any of myself out there. When I pass people, I try to look them in the eye and give them the cordial nod, but I have noticed that I keep my lips pursed every time. I don’t start any conversations in the grocery line or at the gym. I don’t give enough people compliments that might just make their day. I just don’t engage. Until now. Yes, I am going to do better with this. Starting now, and for the sake of today. I am going to be more present with everyone. I am going to consciously smile at people—with my teeth—when I pass them on the sidewalk, or when they swipe my card at the store or gym. I am going to wish people a wonderful day—with words, not just in my head. Rather than finding excuses to not bother people, I am going to come up with excuses to give them compliments. I am going to share my light. Today. For today. Not because it is some great plan for the future—though, as I write this, it does sound like a good idea to build upon (and kind of fun!)—but because it will improve my little corner of the world right now. I can move forward on those big dreams of SOMEDAY at the same time, too. But it is time to bring my own gift to the present. Today is my day!

How about you? What can you do today to make your life better? Open up your journal and your mind. Share yourself freely in the pages. You will be rewarded for your honesty. Which tense do you spend most of your thoughts in: past, present, or future? What percentage of time in each? How about your actions? Do you spend most of your time on what it takes to get you through the day, or are you building for the future? Are you living by default—just going through the motions—or living by design? How far ahead do you look when it comes to planning or goal-setting? Do you ever get too stuck in the future that you don’t take care of today? How about the past? How much of that do you carry around every day? When are you going to decide to let it go? What is the one thing you can do today that will improve your life today? How difficult is it to do? Why do you think you have waited this long to do it? Are you committed to it? I dare you! Leave me a reply and let me know: How are you going to make a better TODAY?

Choose happiness,

William