Category Archives: Time

What Are You Running Out Of Time To Do?

“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”― Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

“A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.”― Charles Darwin, The Life & Letters of Charles Darwin

Hello friend,

I just returned from a wonderful trip with my wife and kids to New York City.  After walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, ferrying to the Statue of Liberty, absorbing the sobering power of the 9/11 Museum & Memorial, strolling Central Park, taking in a Broadway show, and gazing out over all of it from the 93rd floor of a skyscraper, you know what I felt the most when we arrived back home from this grand adventure?

RELIEF.

Yes, relief.  Not because it was stressful to lead three people around a massive and hectic (and stinky) city they knew nothing about.  Not because I needed to be sure two teenagers stayed entertained and as minimally teenagerish as possible.  Not because we got stuck there two extra days with a dwindling supply of money and clean clothes (and perhaps patience).  And not even because I am not a big fan of crowds and airplane travel.  No, I felt this overwhelming sense of relief after the trip simply because we finally had a major family memory imprinted on us for life.

You see, I’m running out of time.  My kids just turned 16 and 14 and I am beginning to freak out about losing them to adulthood and faraway lands and significant others.  It’s not just that I love this fatherhood thing so much and can’t imagine how I will go on without them around every day—though that part is truly killing me—but rather that I feel this intense need for them to take with them out into the world the most beautiful and heart-warming memories about their childhoods.  I just don’t have any time left to waste.

If another whole Summer had passed without a serious core-memory-maker for my kids, I don’t think I could have managed my disappointment in myself.  It had been weighing on me for what felt like forever.  I like the idea of providing them with a unique Summer adventure that they will remember forever.  I think, memory-wise, it makes for a nice complement to annual destinations that they can count on.  So I have been quite disciplined about doing ritual family trips to visit family at lakes in Minnesota, beaches in Florida, and frozen tundras in North Dakota.  And I had been on the hunt for another grand outlier.

I love that when I look back to the halcyon days of my youth, I can say things like, “We always went to my cousin’s rustic cabin at the lake in the Summer,” or, “We always stayed at my grandparents’ house on weekends.”  Honestly, I don’t have a clue how often we were really there, but the way it imprinted on my mind at that age, it felt like we were always taking those visits.  The thought brings a smile to my face, no matter how accurate it is.

Complementing those regular trips to the town two hours away where my parents grew up and all of my extended family seemed to live, my mind clings to the idea of a couple of big Summer road trips we took with my Mom in the family van during my elementary school years.  One was to Nashville and one was to Boston.  My Dad had a convention and would fly into the city, leaving my poor Mom to command the traveling circus of five kids across the country, hopped up on Coke (Mom) and Mello Yello (kids).  FIVE KIDS!  Could she possibly have enjoyed it???  I cannot imagine the stress of managing the five of us in a car going across town, much less the COUNTRY!   A small-town lady about five feet tall accustomed to gravel roads or two-lane highways rolling through Chicago, finding campgrounds in the middle of nowhere in the dark of night, and then pulling up to the fancy hotel in downtown Boston with five feral children tumbling out of the car hoping my old man would be there to meet us.  It is mind-blowing to me, and I would love to know if she found it worth the headache.  But my goodness, when I think back to those trips, even though the specifics are hazy, I have nothing but a happy glow around all of the memories.  I am so, so grateful that we did that together as a family while we had the chance.

That happy glow is exactly why I am so pressed to get these core memories formed in my children’s minds.  I want them to look back glowingly not just about the ritual family spots but also the signature Summer adventures.  Five years ago, when it seemed like they were finally able to really roadtrip (as a verb), we took a giant, 15-day drive out to the mountains and camped in Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks.  It was the best!  Not realizing how quickly they were going to grow up, I didn’t feel so much urgency to plan the next big one.  Finally a couple of years ago, we loaded up the car again for another big one centered around Washington, DC.  Again, amazing.  So much family bonding and signature memories.  Last Summer I surrendered to the idea of doing a trip just with my wife for our 20th anniversary.  While it was so much fun, the unfortunate effect was that it ate up the Summer’s vacation days and dollars.

That set me up for the sudden existential panic that came over me this Spring when I realized that we probably only had two Summers left with the four of us all together.  After my pleading with Father Time to stop his wicked game showed no signs of success, it struck me like a slap in the face the urgency to get a major memory-maker on the books.  I knew that if I failed to finish this parenting-of-children thing strongly, I would regret it for the rest of my life (which I am also trying to finish strongly, with only slightly less urgency).  After months of vague discussions about possible destinations (the Northeast?  the Canadian Rockies?  the Pacific Northwest?), Summer arrived without anything firm.  My panic deepened and added a terrible layer or DREAD.  What if we don’t do something the kids will always remember?  What if I am not demonstrating to them just how important family and adventures (and family adventures) are?  Will they not have their childhoods bathed in that happy glow I still have when I think of mine?

I carried the dread of those questions not just through the booking of the trip but all through the planning.  I tried to leave it there, knowing I did my best to plan a great trip for all of us.  But I realized when we finally got home that I had carried a bit of the dread with me even across the Brooklyn Bridge, to the Statue of Liberty, through the museums and up Broadway to Central Park, and all the way to the top of the skyscraper.  It was only when it was all over and it seemed that everyone had had fun and made good memories that I finally let it go.

For a moment.

Of course, now I am thinking about it again and realizing that Father Time kept playing while we were gone.  Now I have even less time to play with my kids and to make magic.  I realize that I will feel that Tick-Tick-Tick increasing its speed with each passing month until they are gone.  The pressure to both savor every moment and do all of the best stuff with them will only grow.  There is no use kidding myself.  College is two years from now.  I’m on the clock.  I better nail this.

This acknowledgment of my stress and dread about the countdown to college and maximizing my time has me thinking about the many forms this curse takes in the course of a lifetime.  I suppose most of us feel some version of this urgency to do something before it’s too late.

The biggest regret I can think of from my childhood is not going out for the high school basketball team even though I loved the sport and my friends played.  I had been a hockey player through middle school and when I decided to stop that, I secretly fantasized about becoming a basketball player.  However, every year from 9th grade onward, when it came time to try out for the team, I told myself that it was too late, that these kids had been playing since elementary school.  No parent or coach ever asked me if I was interested or nudged me to do it, and I took my secret with me all the way through school, all the time pining to play.  When I think back to that time, I wasn’t too late in 9th grade and maybe not in 10th—I was a good enough athlete to catch right up—but I didn’t believe that.  I thought I had missed the deadline for starting and it really ate at me.  I think I have been keenly aware of the vanishing nature of time and opportunities ever since.

I think of my kids in high school and their friends, being embarrassed if they got a phone after everyone else or whether they might be the last one to get a girlfriend or boyfriend.  I think about couples struggling with fertility, wondering if they are becoming too old to become pregnant or if their future child, however it might arrive, will be embarrassed that its parents are so old.  I wonder about the estranged parent who thinks if they wait any longer to reach out, they may never again get a chance to have a relationship with their kids.  I think about the person with substance abuse or other mental health problems who may not be able to make it much longer if they don’t ask for help.  I wonder about, for all the time I spend thinking about a pivot in my career, at what point it will actually become too late to make one.  I often think about my parents, both hovering around 80, wondering how much confidence they have left in their abilities to be adventurous and what things they are urgent to get to before they are truly out of time.

Based on my current trajectory, I cannot imagine that this issue becomes less urgent with age.  I understand that we are all built differently and that some things that stress me may not be of much concern to you.  It just feels like this is one thing that touches all of our lives at one point or another, and for some of us (me) at all points in our lives.  I seem to be constantly aware of Time and how I am using my allotment of it, particularly how much Beauty and Wonder I can squeeze out of what little I have left.  There just never seems to be enough for me to do it all.

How about you?  At this point in your timeline, what is the thing you feel like you are running out of time to complete?  Open up your journal and explore the distance between where you are and where you want to be?  How much time would it require to take the steps necessary to get you to that destination?  Is it a long process or just a simple step that you have merely been putting off?  How big is your window of time for this project?  Will it close rapidly?  How do you think you would feel if you missed it?  Can you live with that?  What are the potential upcoming milestone-type events in your life?  Marriage?  Child-bearing?  Relocation?  Career change?  Divorce?  Lifestyle change?  Empty nest?  Retirement?  Loss of mobility?  Death?  Is it these larger life events that you seem to be racing against when it comes to your To-Do List, or is it more subtle or personal markers?  Are there things you feel you need to do before you can feel fulfilled?  What is keeping you from taking the necessary steps?  Is it money, lack of time, fear, something else?  What small thing could you do today that might create momentum in the direction you need to go?  In the end of your life, do you think you would regret more trying to get this done and failing, or not trying at all and never knowing whether or not you could have made it happen?  Are you willing to live with that regret?  How quickly do you believe you can change your situation or the path of your life?  Do you feel this urgency increase or decrease the older you get?  Leave me a reply and let me know: What are you running out of time to do?

Keep taking steps,

William

P.S. If this topic resonated with you today, please share it with your people.  Let’s support each other in becoming the best version of ourselves, one brave act at a time.

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

All The Things You Thought You Were (But Really Weren’t)…

“It’s like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.” –Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

“When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.” –Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

I have been on a photography kick for the last year or so.  I have always liked taking pictures and wished I knew more about how to make good ones, but this year I have started to take it more seriously.  I wouldn’t say I’m obsessed with it–not yet anyway–but I am definitely fascinated and absolutely eager to learn everything I can about it.  It’s an artform that I really connect with.  I want to think I have it in me, too.  I would love to one day feel like a “real” photographer, able to create jaw-dropping images of the people and places in my world.  Full disclosure: my current fantasy is not just to feel like a professional; it’s to be one.  I daydream about people hiring me to take their portraits or buying my photos for the walls of their homes.  The thought of it gets me all stirred up inside.

Here’s the kicker, though: becoming a “real” photographer requires not only the talent for it and the time to invest in learning the art and science, but also many thousands of dollars for the equipment to try.

Whoa!  Time to pump the breaks!

I am such a cheapskate!  I can’t stand the idea of spending what little “extra” money I have, especially not while I have people depending on me for food and shelter, not to mention fees for sports and the prospect of college in the near future.  How dare I think of blowing cash on myself?  Especially for something as decadent as multi-thousand-dollar art supplies?  It just feels greedy and irresponsible to splurge on something I can’t even be sure I will make happen.

I mean, it feels right to me now.  It’s giving my belly all the tingles and my brain a flood of fantasies.  I can really see myself doing this and loving it.  HOWEVER—ugh, I hate the however—I know I need to check myself.  I am aware that I have a tendency to get excited about stuff, especially my kind of stuff—adventures, art, physical activity, mindfulness, self-improvement, etc.—and allow my mind to run away with fantasies of an entire lifestyle of whatever that thing is.  I realize that I can get sucked into an Inspiration Du Jour.  I own that.  So when I really get into something new that feels oh-so-exciting and potentially fulfilling, I have to remind myself I have been here before.  A few times.

When I was in my twenties, I read so many books.  I loved books!  But not only did I love them, I thought I should own all of them.  I fancied the idea of owning all of the classics, leather-bound.  I would line my walls with bookshelves and fill them all from floor to ceiling.  And of course I would read them all.  And not just the classics but every book in the genres I was into at the time.  Every sacred religious text, every book of modern spirituality.  Every great work of philosophy and poetry.  Biographies, too, of course, and works of history.   I liked dictionaries and thesauruses, too, as well as books of quotations and idioms.  I wanted them all.

And now?  I am SO GLAD I did not buy them or commit to reading them all!  I would be thoroughly disappointed in myself.  The book collector and nonstop reader idea matches up beautifully with someone who has neither children nor other major hobbies or obligations (like a job!).  I still think it is a romantic idea, and it may be perfect for someone with a lot of extra time, space, and money.  I don’t have any of those things, so it wouldn’t be a good fit.  I never stopped loving books, though.  Now I mostly just get mine from my library’s app, though, and read for a few minutes in bed before I fall asleep.  I thought I was a book collector and devourer.  I was wrong.

That is a lifestyle/hobby example, which is significant. But it doesn’t feel like as big a miss as those involving a career.  I don’t know which category the photography thing will end up falling into, but if it is the career misfire, I’ve already been down that road, too.

About a decade ago, when I was ready to transition out of coaching tennis professionally, I became quite excited about the idea of becoming a life coach.  I had thought seriously about becoming a psychologist when I was in college (and still believe that would have been a solid choice for me), but ultimately I went a different direction.  But what I liked—and still like—about the concept of life coaching over therapy is dealing with “well” folks who aren’t looking to have their problems solved but just need someone to help make the path to their goals more clear and manageable.  They want to go from good to great.  That gets me charged up.  Like therapy, though, life coaching is one-on-one and highly focused on going deep with a person, which suits my personality beautifully.

I enrolled in course work and was fully engaged, doing lots of practice coaching sessions with my classmates and other volunteers.  I found I had a real knack for it and enjoyed being a part of someone else’s progress toward their goals, similar to the reason I loved coaching tennis.  I believed I was making the world a better place, too, which is important to me.  It felt like a perfect fit.  I was into it!  I believed this was going to be a smooth transition into my next career that I would ride all the way to retirement.

NOPE.

It turned out I was missing one important piece of the professional life coach’s toolkit: salesmanship.  Life coaching isn’t covered by insurance, and doctors aren’t sending patients to coaches like they are to physical therapists or other specialists.  There is no pipeline of clients banging down your door once you put your new website online.  These folks are independent contractors, so they have to attract each client to them, convincing them of the value of coaching.  You have to be willing to put yourself out there, strike up conversations with strangers about your skills, have an elevator pitch, and all of that kind of stuff.  And because lots of regular people don’t really know what a life coach even is or what they do, it puts extra emphasis on the salesmanship element.  I quickly realized that no matter how well I thought I could do the coaching, if I wasn’t willing and able to do the selling, I was not going to be a life coach.

STRIKEOUT.

Just telling that story bums me out, because it really felt like the right thing for me.  And not doing it obviously shaped the course of my life in a major way.  I wish I had been right.

I’ve been wrong about less consequential things, though, too.  When I was in my early twenties, I developed a great love for the mountains and camping in the great outdoors.  I was so happy to be out on a hike in the wilderness or sitting by a campfire looking up at the magnificence of the night sky before zipping myself into my sleeping bag in the tent, listening to the sound of the forest as I drifted off with a grateful smile on my face.  I was an outdoorsman!  And I was right about that—hooray!

But then I met my less outdoorsy wife and got busy with little kids in suburbia.  When I believed they were finally ready, I planned an epic family adventure during which we would camp in the spartan national park campgrounds at Yellowstone and Glacier.  We would do it like proper outdoorspeople: prepare our own food outside and sleep in the tent.  I bought all the gear and supplies, as though this was our new lifestyle.  And we all did it!  It was great, our best trip yet.  So of course, I was sure we had just become a camping family.  My wife and kids would be begging for trips to the national parks, and we would know the tent sites and hiking trails all over this beautiful country.  I was thrilled! I would be communing with Mother Nature again and I could pass it all down to my kids.  A legacy of campers!

NEGATIVE.

We haven’t camped as a whole family since, and the gear is collecting dust in the attic.  No one is begging me for more nights in the tent or tough mountain hikes.  I still hold out hope that they will come on another big adventure with me to the Tetons or Sierras, but I have a feeling we will need to rent a cabin or hotel room and eat at restaurants rather than by the fire.  I was wrong again!

I’ve always been fascinated by vision boards.  You know, getting a piece of posterboard and then searching through magazines or the Internet to cut out pictures or words that speak to you about who you want to become.  The resulting collage strikes me as so inspirational and a good reminder of what you are striving for.  I love looking at them.  I’ve never made a vision board.  I bet if I had at any point along my journey, many of the pictures or words I pasted on my board would have been proven flat wrong by the way I have lived my life.  That seems weird to me.  I tend to think most people’s paths are much steadier than mine, much less erratic.

This is not to say I have never been right about who I am and what I ought to do, even if I no longer do that specific thing directly anymore.  I have always been a coach, even if I no longer do it as a full-time job.  Any time I drive by a tennis court at a local park, I still feel the pull to give someone a stroke tip or some encouragement.  Even though I no longer act on stage, I still feel that artform inside of me and would surely be delighted to find some role in a community theatre production when I have the time.  Even though I write these letters to you much less often than I used to or than I would prefer, I still know deep down in my soul that I am a writer and always will be.

Maybe my disconnect is about distinguishing between what I love to do, what I do well, and what I can reasonably sustain as a career.  I have shown a propensity for believing I ought to make a career out of things I love to do, especially if they involve being some sort of artist.  I guess that’s where I am right now with this new fascination with photography.  I know I enjoy it and that it scratches my creative itch.  I know I am eager to learn everything I can about it.  I know it plays into my ideals of setting my own schedule, being my own boss, working alone (in some cases), getting to be outside for parts of the day, and producing something people will enjoy or be inspired by.  All of those things are great.   But can I???  Will I be able to learn enough of the technical skills to become competent?  Am I gifted enough in the artistry of it to make my images worth paying for?  And, perhaps most crucial given my track record with entrepreneurism and salesmanship, do I have the marketing and business savvy to actually create a functioning business out of it?  If the answer to any of these is NO, well, then I am wrong again about the thing I imagined myself to be.

But is being wrong about this actually so wrong?  I mean, if I never become the professional photographer of my recent fantasies, I will still be a guy who loves taking photos.  There are thousands of people who do that as their hobby and are deeply fulfilled by it.  They plan trips around it.  They save their pennies to get new equipment, which is endlessly exhilarating.  They take family photos as favors to their friends.  That is all positive stuff.  It’s a different lane than what I have envisioned, but still beautiful.

Also, and only in this moment am I truly seeing this as a golden truth, just getting excited about being something new and different is its own kind of magical gift.  It’s like falling in love.  There’s that giddiness and thrill of this brilliant novelty that you can’t wait to do everything with.  You generate all sorts of fantasies in your mind about how wonderful it will all be.  The dopamine rush of it all is the best thing in the world.  It’s truly intoxicating.  Does it work out in the end?  Not usually.  Does the disappointment of that hurt so much that you swear you will never do it again?  Maybe.  But is that sheer joy and the anticipation of coming magic worth feeling over and over again?  Absolutely!

So, I guess being wrong about who you thought you would be or what you thought you would be doing isn’t the worst thing.  Sure, it can be disappointing.  And it can be hard to find your way back into balance after striking out on a lifestyle you thought was meant for you.  But think of all that curiosity you get to quell by giving it a shot.  Think of all the different things you can become pretty knowledgeable about.  Think about all the fascinating people you meet by diving into a new space.  Think of the courage you gain by trying something new.  Think of all the things you learn about yourself in that trying, and even in the subsequent “failing” or course-correction.  And definitely think about the privilege of getting to the end of your life with no regrets, no What-Ifs.  That is a priceless gift you can only give to yourself.

I don’t know how many more of these “I think I’m going to be a…” I will cycle through before I die.  Probably several.  I’m guessing most people go through a handful of them in their young adulthood and then fewer and fewer as they age, but I seem to keep churning them out.  Perhaps it means I am just not satisfied yet, that I haven’t found the thing I am supposed to be doing.  Maybe it means that I am incapable of sitting still for long, incapable of being satisfied by any one thing.  I don’t know.  I just get the feeling that I am meant to keep learning and growing and discovering everything I can about this world and everything it has to offer.  One of the hazards of this inclination is that I fall in love quite frequently, with things like psychology, self-discovery, travel, music, journaling, acting, spirituality, tennis, philosophy, writing, the outdoors, movies, books, coaching, and now photography.  And even if I can’t claim to be an afficionado in more than a few of those pursuits, each one has taken its turn filling my life with such magic and inspiration.  Even if they didn’t turn out to be “Who I Am” for the rest of my life, I wouldn’t remove any of them from my journey.  And I can hardly wait to see what magnificent pursuit will captivate me next, even if I’m pretty sure it will ultimately slide onto the back burner.  I’ve been wrong about myself before.  It won’t stop me from diving in again.

How about you?  What are all the things you thought you were but simply weren’t?  Open up your journal and tell your life stories.  What things have gotten your fantasies popping with visions of your future?  What kind of career field have you been pretty sure you were headed into?  Did it start with the “What do you want to be when you grow up?” question from childhood?  What did you believe your future looked like way back then?  What was your job going to be?  What else would you be involved in?  Did you picture your family situation?  How long did you hold onto your childhood fantasies before adapting to the natural changes that come with maturity and adulthood?  How many different career paths have you gotten excited about over the years?  Of those, how many remained only in your imagination, and how many did you actually put some time and effort into exploring?  If you look at your employment history, would you say you have had multiple careers or just one career (possibly with multiple different jobs)?  Are you currently in the field that you once daydreamed about?  How close are you to that?  Has it met your expectations?  If you are not doing what you dreamt of, why not?  Are you still hoping to go for it one day?  Is the thing you wish you were doing a reasonable option or something that would be highly unlikely for someone of your talents and means?  Can you still do something like it as a hobby?  Would that still be fulfilling to you?  What other hobbies or passion projects have you imagined that you would take on?  Have you fantasized about getting into the arts in some way, like becoming a musician or a painter?  Have you dreamt of building things?  Do you see yourself as a someone who volunteers their time for worthy causes?  Have you wanted to be a mentor to someone?  Do you have aspirations to run races or do a triathlon?  Do you imagine your body looking a different way?  Is there a lifestyle change you think would be perfect for you, like traveling or outdoor adventure or a religious commitment?  How many significant changes have you undergone along your journey regarding who you think you are or what you do with your time?  Did you change more often when you were younger, or has your rate of change been fairly consistent over time?  Do you think your lifestyle is more or less stable than the other people in your life?  What do you attribute that to?  If you aren’t fully satisfied with your current lot, do you have any ideas brewing in your mind about what else you might do for fulfillment?  Which ones excite you the most?  How reasonable are the options?  Which are you most likely to take a chance on?  Of all the different ways you have lived to this point, which suited you the most?  What about the least?  Have you been pretty close most of the time?  Do you see each new effort to fulfill a fantasy as a gift—like falling in love is a gift–even if it doesn’t stand the test of time?  Leave me a reply and let me know: Of all the things you once thought you were, how many have you been wrong about?

Keep diving,

William

P.S. If this letter resonated with you today, please share it with your community.  Let’s talk about this stuff!

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

What To Cut? The Urgency of a Short Life

“How did it get so late so soon?” –Dr. Seuss

“A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.” –Charles Darwin

I was recently “invited” to a meeting at my place of work to discuss work matters with my coworkers and a superior.  The twin catches were that 1) it was not during my contracted work hours, and 2) I would not be paid to attend.  I considered it for less than a second before deciding 1) it was a waste of my time, and thus 2) I would not be going.

I knew my co-workers would be going, though, and so it got my mind stirred about my position on (not) attending the meeting and how I might defend it if challenged.  Not that anyone was going to challenge me, but I enjoy these mental exercises.  This is where my journal comes in to help me understand how I feel.  So I played it out.

First, I am a big believer in the idea that when we agree on the terms of employment, we stick to them.  I am also big on if you want me to do extra work, you give me extra money.  But I realized that neither of those principles had anything to do with my instant and fierce rejection of the invitation.  I knew it was a meeting where nothing would be achieved.  And even bigger than that, IT WAS A MEETING.

For my money, meetings are probably the single biggest time-waster in the world.  I loathe them in the core of my soul.  When I was a manager, I hosted as few of them as I possibly could for my employees.  As an employee, I attend as few of them as I possibly can.  I understand that there can be some benefit to camaraderie and team-building and such.  I think those things are important.  But most topics in most meetings all over the world are pointless and could be sent in an email that requires a few minutes to read rather than an hour of meeting time.  As for the people who hold them just to hold them or make them last the full hour just because they blocked off that much time in their calendar, I resent them with an earnest passion.

DON’T WASTE MY TIME!!!

I turned 50 this year, and though I don’t think this had anything to do with my attitude about time-wasting, I don’t rule it out.  I guess I have felt this thing in my bones most of my life, but the point on it has grown finer and finer over the years.  At this stage I might even say it is the dominant theme of my mental life.  Every proposition—how to spend the morning (or the hour, or the vacation, or the Summer), whom to pass the time with, what to talk about, what to learn about, what to create—has to be filtered through that essential prism: Is this worth my precious time?

What has become so much clearer to me in recent months than ever before in my life is this basic belief that I can only now say out loud: I don’t have much time left.

This is not a revelation of some deadly disease or anything like that.  I truly don’t have a clue when I am going to die.  It’s just my intellectual reality.  Even if I live to 100, that is simply not much time.  It seems to be flying by me like a high-speed train in recent years, and that trend does not show any signs of reversing itself.  The next 50 years, even if I were to be so lucky, will go by in a blink.  So, what if it’s only 5 more years?  Or 25?  Those are micro-blinks.  Nothing.  That’s how I am thinking these days.  I simply don’t have much time left.

You might be thinking, “That’s a horrible way to look at things.  Doesn’t that give you anxiety?   Or sadness?  Just relax and enjoy all of these years you have to go!”  I disagree.  Sure, it puts more pressure on me to be certain my priorities are clear and to make wise decisions with my schedule and the company I keep.  It can make me a bit hard on myself for poor choices.  But what it really does is keep me focused.  I know that when a situation arises in my life, it is immediately going to be run through my priority filters.  Is this going to enrich me?  Is this going to be fun?  Will I be happier or wiser for this experience?  Does it get me excited?  And possibly most critical, Is this going to keep me from something I want more?  I don’t have to mentally go down a checklist of these questions, as I have already internalized the process and just let it happen naturally.  If I had to make it into a question that required a formal answer, though, I’m guessing the question would be: Is this a good use of my time?

If it is something like that work meeting, my system is as efficient as can be.  That’s an automatic NO.  On more complex questions, I generally have an immediate feeling but then am open to persuasion, whether by me or other people.  I like to hear a good argument.  I like logic.  I also like an emotional plea.  I am sympathetic to both.  Both elements can make something a good use of my time.

I’ve had this ongoing battle in my head over the years as to what is enough in terms of what I am doing.  Again it boils down to the answers to certain types of questions: Am I helping enough people?  Am I using my gifts enough?  Have I pushed myself enough? Am I being brave enough in the face my doubts and challenges?   Am I laughing/learning/loving/adventuring enough each day (or year or decade)?  Will I be satisfied enough with my run when it is time to die?  All of the questions framing this battle again return to my use of the limited time I have to maximize my potential.  Their collective weight makes it seem completely natural to weigh every decision through the lens called Time Well-Spent???

This Summer and last Summer have had, for me, totally different vibes attached to them.  By the time last Summer began, I was mostly committed to the attempt to write my first novel.  With each passing day and each passing chapter I wrote, I became increasingly committed and excited about it.  It was doing all the things for me: enriching me, exciting me, challenging me, inspiring me, drawing out my creativity, being fun, and letting me dream of a beautiful future.  And even though it kept me from doing some other things that I love each day, I knew it was so worth it.  Quite simply, it was a good use of my time.  Not at all a waste.  This Summer has been so different.  I have not had a major personal project to drive me, no labor of love that gets me to sacrifice my other priorities.  I have been busier with other things than last Summer, but it has been just regular Life busy, errands and tasks and the like.  Necessary stuff, but nothing that I would describe as enriching, exciting, challenging, inspiring, creative, or fun.

I can only go so long without doing something that stirs up my soul before I start to question the path I am on.  I get not only restless about the capital-P Purpose of my life but also suspicious of my work ethic and focus.  I like “production” to point to as proof that I am getting somewhere.  I start to question how I will ever be satisfied with my accomplishments if I am having such a period of stagnation in my soul.  I get antsy.  This is where I have been this Summer.

As a defense mechanism against this onset of existential doom, my brain has concocted a new argument as to why I can go on with this Busy Life mode for a bit more without being overrun with guilt or submitting to a life of eternal dissatisfaction.  It goes something like this: maybe it doesn’t always have to be that I am working on that super-inspiring project that is giving me an adrenaline jolt and meaning to my life—those projects will ebb and flow naturally as I stay vigilant-but-open to them–but it DOES always have to be that I am not including things in my schedule that feel in my heart and mind like a waste of time.   It’s not always going to be writing a book or painting a masterpiece, but it can’t be sitting in a pointless meeting.  Obviously this explanation requires a little psychological tapdancing in order to convince my ambitious, “true” self that the Busy Life things I am doing are necessary for bigger priorities—like a happy family—rather than actual time-wasters cleverly disguised to allow me to be lazy.

It seems to be a matter of constantly being honest with myself about whether I am being disciplined enough with the projects that stir my soul and keep wind in my sails, balanced with some grace to allow for periods when Life just doesn’t allow much time for all of that.  I can’t be constantly chiding myself for not doing enough to advance my dreams.  That’s not healthy. On the other hand, I refuse to waste time.

Thus, it becomes: Which things can I cut from regular Life?  The meetings are the obvious answer.  But then it gets tougher.  There are not hard and fast answers.  General guidelines might be better.  Most gatherings I find wasteful—too much small-talk and nonsense, not enough true connections and passion shared—but certainly not all.  Limiting television and social media seems wise, but I don’t want to eliminate either completely.  I would like to figure out a way to spend less time driving.  Perhaps a work-from-home job would make me feel more productive.  I’m sure there are others.  I just have to be present and hyper-aware of the value of everything on my itinerary as I pass through the day so that when I come across a waste, I make the mental note and skip that the next time.

Because there aren’t so many next times left.  I keep going back to that again and again in my mind: I don’t have many Summers left.  Even if I could talk to my 20-year-old self right now, I would tell him, “You don’t have many Summers left, kid.  Don’t waste a single one.”  Autumns, Winters, or Springs, either.  They just go so fast.  The value of each one gets higher with every passing year, because there are that many fewer to go, no matter how long your lifeline is.  It’s not getting longer, only shorter.  What’s the line? “We’ve been dying since the day we were born.”  Something like that.  I don’t really like to think of it as we are dying so much as that we have less and less time to live.  I am here to LIVE!  All the way to the end and not just once in a while.  It’s time to be efficient with it all.  I better get busy living.

How about you?  How much of your time feels wasted?  Open up your journal and take a walk through your schedule and what your actions say about your current priorities.  Is your life full of activities and people that are in line with who you want to be and how you want to be spending your fleeting years?  Are you working toward something that, even if you aren’t exactly doing it now, you know that this path you are on is a positive use of your precious time?  When I am driving my kids around, I remind myself that even though it looks boring and so time-consuming, this is valuable and very important to me because of the commitment I made to being the best, most present parent I can be and raising them well.  What are the things in your life that look trivial and wasteful but are actually in the service of your highest priorities?  What are your habits or items in your regular schedule of activities that look most obviously like excellent uses of your time?  Which priorities do they satisfy?  Are there any of your “buckets” or priorities that simply do not get attention on your calendar?  Why is that?  What things on your schedule could stand to be removed and replaced by things that would better match what you believe your priorities to be?  Would you go so far as to say these possibilities for removal are time-wasters?  What kinds of things—meetings, social media, bad company, etc.—make you think, “Well, I will never get that hour back.”  Are you ever bored?  Would you say boredom is a sign that you are wasting your time?  Is it easy or hard for you to admit when you are wasting your time?  Do you get antsy like I do when you haven’t “accomplished” or “produced” anything in a while?  If so, does that pent-up feeling cause a reckoning like this one in which you re-examine your time and kick yourself in the butt to get going on something more productive?  When I say to you, whether you are 25 or 85, “You don’t have much time left,” how does that strike you?  Are you more inclined to defend and be like, “Oh, sure I do.  I’ll be around for a long time.”?  Or are you more like, “Holy crap!  You’re right.  It’s getting away in a hurry.”?  Do you feel like they are both true, or is only one true and the others are either delusional or pessimistic?  Do you always answer the same way, or do you go back and forth depending on the season of your life?  At the moment, are you content coasting along under the assumption that you have loads of time left, or do you perhaps need a little jolt of urgency about the length of your stay here and what you ought to be doing about that?  Leave me a reply and let me know: How could you better spend your numbered days?

Choose wisely,

William

P.S. If this topic resonates with you today, please share it with your community.  Let’s help each other to clarify our position on the timeline.

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

Happy Old Year!!! The Highly Specific, Totally Personal BEST OF 2022 List

“Make improvements, not excuses.” –Roy T. Bennett, The Light In The Heart 

“We don’t need to have just one favorite. We keep adding favorites. Our favorite book is always the book that speaks most directly to us at a particular stage in our lives. And our lives change. We have other favorites that give us what we most need at that particular time. But we never lose the old favorites. They’re always with us. We just sort of accumulate them.” –Lloyd Alexander

Hello friend,

Happy New Year!  I love this time of the year for its outward permission to begin again and to be optimistic.  It’s expected that we set some goals, make some plans, and generally set out to become a better version of who we were last year.  That sounds good, right?

Yes, BUT….

While I am so excited for what 2023 has in store for me—I’m sincerely thinking it could be my best year yet—I am not quite ready to just leave 2022 in the rubbish pile.  I adored 2022!  I so often found myself thrilled at what I was engaged in, whether that was a physical challenge, a streaming series, or a delicious beverage.  So before I go bouncing excitedly into the new year, I want to make a list of the best things I did or saw or got into in 2022.  Not the usual Top 10 Movies or 10 Best Television Shows type of lists that are everywhere lately—I do love those, too, however—but rather something very personal and specific, and yet also random.  I’m thinking of any little product I discovered or thing I added to my routine or even advice I heard.  Just stuff I kind of test drove in my life.

Since I am constantly tinkering with my life in hopes of making it the most productive, efficient, fun, adventurous, and helpful it can possibly be, I love when I find a good hack or pro tip or simply something that tastes amazing.  These are the kinds of things I am always trying to pry out of people I know: their secrets for making Life a little easier or happier.  Some people seem to have a ton—my sister is good at this–and I love when they are willing to share.  So, in the spirit of bests, here are some of my favorites from 2022:

  • Best Follow-My-Gut Moment: When I randomly wrote the first chapter of what became my novel. I had no clue about the plot of the story at the time, but I just decided to write a page simply to see how it felt.  The result: I was completely alive, every synapse in my brain exploding like a fireworks show.  Clearly I was onto something.  I didn’t know what, but I knew I needed to see where it would lead.  By the end of the year, I had a draft that I actually liked and felt like a real book to me.  We will see in 2023 if any publishers think so, but even if they don’t, this was absolutely one of the coolest and most rewarding things I have ever done.  I now feel like I must give myself permission to seize upon my gut instincts more often and take more chances creatively.  Who knows what other magic might be inside of me?
  • Best Addition To My Health & Fitness Routine: Bedtime yoga. I don’t know if it’s actually yoga.  Maybe it’s just stretching.  In any case, it has been so, so helpful to both my sleep and my waking life.  I have had back problems my entire adult life, including surgery and lots of rough weeks bent sideways in spasm.  I am always searching for ways to make those rough weeks fewer and further between.  This year I think I finally discovered one (knock on wood).  On a mat in the dark when I am otherwise completely ready for bed, I roll my back out with my Chirp wheel and then invert myself so my feet are in the air.   I do a bunch of stretches for my legs, hips, and torso.  I include focused breathing and a few regular yoga poses to finish up.  The whole routine—it has definitely become a routine—takes about 20 minutes.  Then I climb into bed feeling wonderfully relaxed and clear-minded.  I have had far fewer days of physical agony this year than any in recent decades, which means I can do more of the things that fill my bucket.  This addition to my routine, to which I have been faithful even when busy or exhausted or on vacation, is definitely something I am going to keep.  I am beyond grateful for it.
  • Best Electronic/Device To Keep Me On Track Physically: A Fitbit. For years I resisted getting any kind of step counter or fitness tracker or smartwatch, not because I didn’t believe in their usefulness but because I tend to get a bit obsessed with statistics and metrics of all sorts.  They are just too fascinating to me.  I knew that would happen if I got one of these gadgets, but I just couldn’t resist any longer.  I asked for one at the holidays last year and have been dialed in ever since (I started with a Charge 5 and just got a Sense 2 last week).  I love all the numbers: active zone minutes, steps, miles, sleep stages, heart rates, skin temperature, oxygen saturation, and on and on.  Beyond just being interesting, it got me to move more often and set more and different goals, sometimes many times per day.  And by judging me and assigning a sleep score every morning when I woke up, it tapped into my competitiveness and really pushed me to get to bed on time and sleep more.  Getting more active and sleeping better—it is a very satisfying combination for me.  I’m sticking with it.
  • Second Best Device To Keep Me On Track Physically: A scale. I know I know!  It’s not supposed to be about your weight but about how you feel.  I get it and I agree.  And I was also a bit hesitant to bring a scale into the house of young adolescents, as I don’t want them obsessing about their own weights.  I did it anyway, not long after I got the Fitbit.  All my adult life I had stayed fit but my weight kept creeping up almost imperceptibly, maybe a pound per year lately.  I had started to accept it as natural, but I just couldn’t convince myself.  I decided to make subtle changes and wanted to see if they worked.  I wanted the scale to give me one type of measurable data.  It absolutely did.  Yes, I admit that I am obsessed with it, checking my weight multiple times per day to understand my body’s patterns.  But it has also worked—along with the other things I have already mentioned—in helping me lose weight for the first time in my entire life.  I’m not saying a scale is for everybody, but for me it has been an excellent addition to my health plan.
  • Best New Tool For Yardwork & Chores: Battery power. This Spring, when it was time to get the stinky gas mower serviced again for the season, I instead got into heavy research about what has intrigued me for a couple of years: battery-powered mowers.  Since I absolutely loathe the smell of exhaust from gas engines and figured I could be doing something positive for the environment (and not be frustrated annually by the chugging of my engine and questioning which gas is right and how long it can be in the tank, etc.), I went for it (I got an E-GO brand).  Other than the battery not lasting as long as I needed to finish the yard in one pass, it proved to be a total game-changer.  It is so much more quiet, cuts well, and no more awful smell.  And good-bye cord-yanking; I just push the button to start it.  When Fall came and I needed more repairs to the even-less-trusty-but-more-stinky snowblower, I decided to cut my losses and get the battery-powered one from E-GO.  I can use the same batteries as the mower interchangeably and now won’t worry about running out of either.  I am never going back to gas.  Go Science!
  • Best Addition To Oral Health Routine (Hey, I said personal!): A water flosser (a.k.a. WaterPik). I have been intrigued by these things since I was a little kid but had never tried one.  At my last checkup, the hygienist said that because of grooves and pockets in my teeth, they can collect unwanted food during the day.  She suggested a water flosser.  As luck would have it, one soon went on sale at Costco.  The verdict: so worth it!  I don’t wait for the end of the night.  I do it a few times a day if I am around.  It feels so good and really does clear the food out.  I am committed for life!
  • Best Media Addition: I never understood how people had time for podcasts (or television series or movies, for that matter), so I just never considered them before.  However, on a trusted friend’s recommendation, I tried an episode of Jay Shetty’s “On Purpose” as a substitute for listening to music while working out.  I got hooked, first on that particular podcast and then on the medium in general.  Who knew there was so much to learn and laugh at?  Answer: probably everyone but me.  But now I do, and I love it.
  • Best Podcast: I smile just typing the word.  This interview show hosted by the brilliant comic actors Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, and Sean Hayes along with one famous guest has brought me so many hours of enjoyment this year.  I listen to it while lifting weights, so along with the regular grunting and panting from me dying in my attempts to stay fit, you will hear me giggling along to the show as they mock each other to oblivion.  The guests are excellent, but the hosts are the best.  I hope this show never ends!
  • Best Indulgent Drink: Big Train Spiced Chai Latte. I’ve had a lifelong sweet tooth and have always enjoyed a huge ice cream habit.  Part of my attempt to lose weight has been to ease up just a tiny bit on the sweets, and that includes ice cream.  However, I think I may have simply traded one very sweet treat for another this year.  I like the idea of tea, but my usual favorites are about half tea water and half honey.  This year, though, I allowed myself a splurge and bought some chai latte powder.  Big mistake!  I loved it too much, especially with some added Caramel Macchiato creamer from Aldi added to make it even more sweet and creamy.  I can’t even pretend it is good for me, as I like to do with other teas (honey is a health food, right?).  It is a dessert, plain and simple.  I do my best to not drink it every day, as I don’t want to admit it is a habit.  I will just say it is fantastic and hard to resist.  I’m a big fan and yes, hooked.
  • Best Streaming Stuff: Okay fine, I surrender! Since I love television and film, I can’t pass up the chance to share things I have enjoyed this year.  Full disclosure: other than the occasional weekend evening of watching an entire episode or movie with my family, I only ever watch things while on a piece of cardio equipment.  That means I watch movies in two or three sittings over the course of a week, and episodes get broken up randomly depending on my workouts.  It’s not an ideal way to watch and probably alters what I like and dislike, but it’s the best I can do for now.  Anyway, I feel like I have watched a lot of HBO Max and Apple TV+ this year.  My favorites from there and elsewhere have been Black Bird, Severance, Euphoria, Heartstopper, Ozark, Slow Horses, and Bullet Train.
  • Best Musical Artist: Though this was not a new find for me, I was deep into Matt Nathanson this year. His new album “Boston Accent” got by far the most plays on my Apple Music app.  My daughter and I just bonded over his Holiday Livestream on Friday night.  I believe I have been transformed from a fan to a superfan.
  • Best Advice From A Meme: “Be you. The world will adjust.”  Enough said.

I suppose I should take it as a good sign that I have not gotten too old and set in my ways that I can have this many fabulous new additions to my life in just one year.  I do love my routines and am undoubtedly highly opinionated, but I am constantly tinkering and trying new ways to see if I can make both my mind and my entire existence better.  And since I love learning, new experiments, ideas, and art forms are the natural way to scratch that ever-present itch.  This year I just happened to get lucky on many of the things I tried, leaving me feeling pretty darn satisfied with my Best Of Everything list and fairly certain many of these will become long-term positive changes in my life.  I love that.  So bring on 2023 and all of the new things I can try out!  My mind is open for business.

How about you?  What is on your Best Of Everything 2022 list?  Open up your journal and move your mind back through your year of new attempts at changing your world one little thing at a time.  Get specific and keep it very personal.  Which physical items (e.g. gadgets, tools, furniture, toys) made your little corner of the world a happier place?  Is there something that makes you more comfortable?  More efficient?  More organized?  Happier?  Which things that you tried or changed have made you healthier?  Which part of your daily routine or schedule have you changed the most?  What improvements have come from that?  Is there a special food or drink item that you have added to your diet?  How about a new favorite recipe?  Have you added any new people to your circle that have become favorites?  Which media that you consumed this year (TV, movies, music, books, podcasts, etc.) do you find yourself recommending to others?  Is there one medium that you have been particularly into this year?  Which artist(s) did you spend the most time with or appreciate the most?  What is the best advice you got this year?  What is the most important thing you did?  Did you spread your wings enough?  Did you get uncomfortable for the sake of growth?  Twenty years from now when you look back on 2022, what will be the most poignant and lasting item on your Best Of list?  Do you leave the year satisfied that you tried out enough new ideas, foods, art, and adventure for one year?  Will you be more or less willing to test your limits and stretch your comfort zone next year?  Do you expect next year to be even better than this one for you?  Leave me a reply and let me know, What is on you Best Of Everything 2022 list?

Onward and upward,

William

P.S. If today’s letter resonated with you, please share it with your community.  Examining our lives makes them so much more sweet and vibrant.

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

Have You Come To Terms With Your Age?

“It’s paradoxical that the idea of living a long life appeals to everyone, but the idea of getting old doesn’t appeal to anyone.” –Andy Rooney

“How did it get so late so soon?” –Dr. Seuss

“A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.” –Charles Darwin

Hello friend,

I just turned 50.  I am embarrassed to admit that it was hard for me to type that sentence.  I am still not quite there yet.  Fifty sounds OLD!  Whether it is or isn’t, I will leave that for you to debate.  It still sounds that way to me.  And I guess I am not yet at that place of acceptance or surrender or whatever you want to call it that will have me agreeing that I am OLD.  Because if I agree, what does it say about what I have left in me?  Not much time, and even less vigor to do what I need to do it with.  I need some time to sit with that one.  Sadly (or ironically or something), time is the one thing in short supply here.  It is tough turning 50!

I started processing 50 the moment I turned 49.  It was the first time I could no longer deny it.  At 48, I could still convince myself I was in my mid-forties.  Sure, it was a stretch, but I was in the mood for a stretch at that point.  When 49 came around, though, that was it.  I started telling myself I was already 50 just to get used to the idea.  I guess I wanted to soften the blow, to normalize the whole concept of being in my fifties.  I said it over and over.  I could tell it wasn’t really sinking in, though.

I blame my grandparents and my great-uncles and great-aunts.  My Mom’s parents, as was common back then, married in their early twenties and started having kids.  My Grandma had two sisters, and the three of them and their husbands were the best of friends and hung out together–though they called it “visiting,” which makes me smile now to remember, as they are all gone from this world except for these beautiful memories–as often as they could.  They were all great to us kids, and I loved them.  But they were definitely OLD to me.  They had things like false teeth and canes and pipes—genuine Old People stuff.  But they were in their fifties!  At least when I got to know them they were.  I’m sure they had jobs and mowed their yards and built stuff.  You know, regular adult activities, not senile, nursing home activities.  None of that registered to me, though.  They were OLD.  Period.  End of story.  I think that first impression of fifty-somethings being OLD really stuck.  I didn’t expect to ever get that old, but if I were to get there, then surely I would be OLD, too.  It’s logical.

Well, here I am.  Fifty-something.

Getting over the sound of it is one thing.  That will take its own time.  And hey, that’s the silly, unimportant part of this process.  The much more salient part for me is to figure out what being 50 years into my life means.  In essence, it puts the spotlight on the question: Where am I in my lifetime, and what does that mean I have left? 

Over the past year of processing this, I have probably approached it in almost every possible way.  At different points I have decided I am right where I need to be and also nowhere close to what I should have done; feeling great for my age and feeling like a rickety dinosaur; believing I have special things still to create and lamenting that I don’t have time to create them; and just about every other dichotomy you could dream up.  And I’ve not just ridden the extremes.  I have also slid subtly along the spectrum of any imaginable scale of optimism, despair, or acceptance.  Basically, I’ve learned it’s going to be a weird and complicated psychological ride on the way toward making any semblance of peace with my age from this point forward.  Ambivalence will be my constant companion.  That’s unsettling to me.  But whoever said this stuff was easy?

Although I have tested out every mindset and approach to turning 50, the one that seems to be settling in now that I am actually here is the sense of urgency to do the things now.  All of them.  As soon as possible.  It is an overwhelming sense of “I’m running out of time!”  I keep wondering: How many years do I have left?  And to put a finer point on it since I both work in education and naturally adore Summer, it usually comes down to this: How many Summers do I have left? 

This Summer I spent working hard to complete the first draft of my next book.  It felt amazing but also highly pressing.  I was keenly aware every day that Summer was short and I had to take advantage.  That is a microcosm of how I am feeling about what remains of my life at this stage: there isn’t much left and I better use every bit of it wisely.

I’m guessing there are lots of people out there who would look at it completely differently.  Like, “Hey, I’m only 50.  The average life expectancy is around 79.  I’ve got a solid three decades to go.  That’s plenty of time for accomplishment, adventure, and a relaxing retirement.  What’s the rush?”  I can see that point-of-view.  I get it.  It just isn’t me.

For one, I simply never pictured a very long life for myself.  I hope I have lots of healthy, happy, and productive years ahead of me, but the vision doesn’t come naturally.  The other thing is, during the process of writing this letter, one of my best friends from childhood died.  Forty-nine years old and gone.  He didn’t even make the 50 that I am bellyaching about!  In the midst of my grieving these last few days, a thought has occasionally slipped free of the fog in my mind: There are no guaranteed days left.  It could end any time. 

Of course that is true every day since your arrival on Earth, but it never feels true when you are young, right?  Today, though, when I am thinking about my friend’s kids who no longer have their Dad and his wife who no longer has her husband, it feels very, very true.  Life is so darn short.  And whether I make it to 51 or 81, I am well beyond the halfway mark now and the end will be here before I am ready for it.  That clarity is enough to make me feel older than I want to be.

The bottom line is that turning 50 has ramped up my urgency to be the person I feel I was born to be and to do the things that make me feel joy, fulfillment, and sure that my presence here was a net-positive for the world, especially for the people whose lives I have touched.  This sense of urgency and responsibility is something I imagine will only increase as I age, especially as I monitor and recognize my continued failure to reach the standards I have set for myself.  I simply must rise to the occasion that is this beautiful Life.  I will start immediately, because I have A LOT to do!

How about you?  Have you made peace with your age and where you are in the cycle of Life?  Open up your journal and sort yourself out in its pages.  How old are you?  When you say it, what feelings does it bring up?  Do you cringe, even just slightly?  How old do you feel in your mind?  Do you fancy yourself much more young and carefree than you actually are?  What percentage of people do you think actually feel OLD inside?  How does your physical health affect your perception of your age?  How does the way your body feels compare to the way your mind feels?  Do you imagine that gap will only get wider with age, or how do you see your disparity changing?  How much does age matter to you?  Is it something you think about often?  Does it stress you out at all?  Do you dread your milestone birthdays that announce to the world that you are in the next decade?  Has your view on which age is actually OLD changed as you have aged?  At this point, what is the age when you start thinking of people as OLD?  Are you included in that group?  If so, does that bother you, or have you come to terms with it?  If you are not yet what you consider to be OLD, how do you think you will handle your arrival there?  At your age, what is your best guess about how much longer you will be around?  With that number in mind, how urgent is the need to get going on things you plan to accomplish before you go?  What are the things you have left to do in order to look back with a sense of fulfillment and peace about your time here?  Which is the most pressing?  What is one small step you can take today to move forward on that goal?  I hope you take that step.  Leave me a reply and let me know: Have you come to terms with your age?

Wishing you the most beautiful life,

William

P.S. It today’s letter resonated with you, please share it with your community.  Our awareness of our own journey improves the intertwining journeys of everyone around us.

P.P.S. If this type of self-reflection for the purpose of growth is appealing to you, consider buying my book Journal Of YOU: Uncovering The Beauty That Is Your Truth at your favorite online retailers.  Namaste.

How Many Different Careers Are You Meant For?

“The crowning fortune of a man is to be born to some pursuit which finds him employment and happiness, whether it be to make baskets, or broadswords, or canals, or statues, or songs.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson

“I’ve learned that making a ‘living’ is not the same thing as ‘making a life’.” –Maya Angelou

Hello friend,

Writer.  Waiter.  Actor.  Maid.  Tennis Instructor.  Librarian.  Secretary.  Manager.  Laborer.  Teacher.  Personal Trainer.  I could go on if I had to.  I have made money doing all of these things at various times—sometimes at the same time—of my life.  Most of them I have found interesting and have been quite engaged in.  A couple I even thought of as “my career” at the time, and even now when I look back, I might say, “That one was my career.”  But none of them have lasted.  None have had me saying, “This is all I am going to do until I am 70 years old.  I’m good now.”

It seems like the overriding message that our culture sends to our young people is that you go to college (or trade school or whatever) to get a specific degree that will get you a specific job in a specific field, and you are meant to stick in that specific field until you retire.  Get a hobby if you want, but your career—that thing you answered when asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”–is meant to last until retirement.  So, don’t jump ship.  No “mid-life crisis” career changes allowed.  No new callings.  Stay In Your Lane!  I think that works for a lot of people, too.  Most, really.  It just hasn’t worked for me.

I thought I was more or less alone with my wandering eye for new paths, new skillsets, and new areas of expertise (and, frankly, felt pretty ashamed about that across my lifetime, like it made me a quitter).  But a couple of weeks ago, I came across a book called How To Be Everything, and it turns out it is written directly at me.  Or, more accurately, the author seems confident that there are enough people like me that she wrote it for this large, scattered, anonymous collective called us.  I was floored.  She (Emilie Wapnick is the author) calls us “multipotentialites,” but there are other words for us (e.g. “polymath, generalist, Renaissance person, scanner”), in contrast to “specialists,” regular folks who really can tolerate and enjoy doing one thing for the long haul.  I am only a little bit into the book, but needless to say I am quite taken by the idea that a misfit like me not only has peers but may also have something in my wide combination of interests and skills that might even be usefully combined in a career or series of careers that mainstream society could appreciate.  It has me wondering: How many people out there are made for more than one gig, and how many are actually pulling it off?

I am trying to think back on my ancestry and immediate family for clues to my proclivity for multiple passions and interests and inability to settle on just one thing forever.  One of my grandfathers was a lifelong dentist but also was in charge of the family farm, so I suppose that could be something.  My other grandfather managed a lumber yard, but he also liked to build homes on the side and was into the stock market.  My Dad was always a business guy and has been in his same job forever, still not retired yet at 80 years old.  He, too, likes the stock market, but other than reading, I have never thought of him as someone with hobbies.  My Mom started as a teacher very briefly before becoming a full-time Mom, then eased back into the workforce doing some advertising and eventually selling real estate.  I wouldn’t necessarily associate any of them with the “Renaissance person” or “multipotentialite” moniker.  I am quite sure my inability to stay on one track has caused them all some frustration and disappointment along the way, as I am plainly the apple that fell furthest from the tree.  As with most everything else, my siblings are better at staying on the expected path than I am.

Growing up, I always assumed I would be a doctor.  That’s what you were supposed to do if you were smart.  I never questioned it until I was deep into college and started learning a bit about the arts.  Suddenly I felt as if committing to medical school would keep me from exploring anything else I might be interested in.  I decided I wanted to become an actor.  It was completely different in every aspect of my life.  I loved the acting part—the variety of characters to explore was fascinating–but not really the rest of it.  I spent some years just reading nonstop about tons of topics but was primarily interested in religion and spirituality.  I then went back to school, and after some debate between becoming a therapist or a sociologist, I settled on becoming a Philosophy professor and activist.  When I had had enough of that—it didn’t take long—I had a panicked, “Oh my gosh, I am getting old, so what am I going to do for a real career?” moment and decided to go back to the thing that I had always loved but never thought of as a career: coaching tennis.  It wasn’t long into that before I realized I not only wanted to teach but also to be in charge of the program.  That combination of private coaching, group coaching, teams, and then managing a group of people within a large corporation—with budgeting, payroll, hiring and firing, ordering, planning, marketing, and so much more—gave me the kind of variety and challenge that my mind thrives on.

But then I had kids, and—shocker to no parent ever—my perspective changed.  The career was suddenly not so important if it took me away from them.  I gave up the management aspect and just continued the coaching, spending far fewer hours at work than ever.  It was really that change that, as I look back on it now, got me away from feeling like I have a real career and into feeling like I just have a job.  I loved to teach still, and the beautiful uniqueness of each character kept me engaged, but how old can one be and still chase a tennis ball around all day long?  So, I decided to manage a store, the main selling point being not the work but that I could keep being around for my kids for whatever they needed.  I realized I was settling for less than a career I was passionate about so long as it fit into the bigger priority.  When I took my next job at a school, it was the same.  I was willing to be uninspired by my work as long as my bucket got filled in the hours I was not there.

It is hard for me to admit to myself that I am not going for it all, accepting less than having everything up to my standards, being fully satisfied in my work life, family life, and all of my hobbies.  It feels a bit like giving up, which bothers me, but I also know that Life goes in seasons.  I know this time with my kids is fleeting, and giving up some career aspirations in exchange for a completely engaged, no-regrets kind of parenthood is a bargain I am willing to make (though I have plenty of moments when my passions tug at my sleeve like, “Hey, buddy, did you forget about us?”).

It is a good thing that I have so many interests to study and explore, and that each new thing seems to open doors to several new others, making Life an endless maze of discoveries and growth.  I have been writing these letters to you through Journal of You for seven years now, and threw in a book partway through.  I took courses in Life Coaching, which was quite enlightening and inspiring.  Through books, documentary films, and the Internet, I have learned about a wide array of topics that sometimes seem directly connected to the previous thing, sometimes a world apart. I am dying to know more. I am all in on my health and fitness.  Music continues to enthrall me.  My eagerness to be outside and connected to Mother Earth is strong, and my interest in the workings of my own mind remains as strong as ever.  I love to document it all with my pen and my camera.  All of these keep me excited to get up in the morning and deeply engaged until bedtime.  There is never a day that ends with me thinking I had enough time to do all of the things I wanted to do.  Even with a pretty dull work experience.

Because in the end, I understand that it is really about having a satisfying, engaging LIFE.  That is the real goal.  In some seasons of Life, the career part may be deeply meaningful, and hopefully the hobbies and people in my life are, too.  In other seasons, like this one for me, the “career” is just a job and it is the rest of my life that is there to fill my bucket.  I have mostly made my peace with it for now—like I said, I like it when I have everything my way—but I know it won’t be this way forever.

So, what is next?  The one thing I think of as the “career” I had was a tennis coach and program manager.  The other things I think of as jobs along my path.  I guess I am wondering now if the next 20 years or so are going to be about another thing that feels like a “career,” or will I just keep piecing jobs together until I get to the end of the road?  And also, because of my multipotentialite mind, will I ever be satisfied in just one job for very long, or will I need to have multiple jobs at once or a series of short “careers” just to keep my curious mind engaged?  Maybe there is even a multidisciplinary job meant for a guy like me who has a wide range of talents and a need to utilize them all in order to be satisfied.

I think often about my options and my evolving interests.  Just recently my wife bought me a new lens for my camera, and it got me thinking of what it would take to earn a living as a photographer.  I think I would like the variety of subjects and the opportunity to use the artistic part of me.  That is how I think about writing.  I love it every time I sit down to write to you: it’s challenging, it’s different every time, it lets me feel like I am putting something positive out into the world.  It is something I would feel comfortable having that real career feeling about.  I could see that about the Life Coaching thing, too: I felt like it was using my skills to do help a lot of people while satisfying my need for variety and challenge.  I think if I had more years left in my career era, I would consider going back to school for some kind of counseling or therapist training and make a go of that.   My Mom used to say I should be an addiction counselor at a rehab facility.  I can see commonalities in the things I am drawn to: helping others to reach their potential while facing somewhat new and different circumstances and puzzles every day for my mind to find the best way forward.

Who wants to pay me for that?  Anyone?  I know there are jobs out there that would be better suited to me than ones I have done in the last decade or more.  Mine have worked because they were in the mold of my children’s schedules, but maybe I should have been more ambitious or more selective.  I know I have been held back from things like freelance writing or Life Coaching because I am a terrible entrepreneur.  For all of my skills and my great desire to work alone and not be managed by someone else, I am really not good at marketing and digging up business.  It’s a problem that may ultimately dictate the fate of my employment future.  Will I have a job—a career, even—that perfectly suits my talents and my temperament for the long-term?  Will I skip from one thing that interests me until I learn enough about it to become bored and then on to the next thing that interests me, having lots of temporarily satisfying mini-careers?  Or will I just keep doing what fits in my family’s schedule and save all of the meaningful and rewarding stuff for the hours outside of work?  All of those seem like legitimate possibilities at this point.  And honestly, though some look like much more satisfying options than others, I believe that I could live a happy life in any of the worlds.  Not necessarily a happy work life, but a happy life overall.  I have no doubt that no matter which job or jobs I choose to do, my curiosity and thirst for fun and adventure, coupled with the people I spend my time with, will succeed in filling my life with joy and fulfillment.  But hey, why not have it all?  I will work on it.

How about you?  How many different careers are you meant to have over your lifetime?  Open up your journal and think about your working life to this point.  Make a list of all the different jobs you have ever held.  How many felt like just jobs, and how many, if any, have felt like your career?  If you have a career, what is it that appeals to you about your specialization?  Have you always known you would do something like that?  When you were younger and were asked what you wanted to be or do when you grew up, what did you say?  Did that dream career actually fit your personality and talents?  Whether you consider yourself to be in a career or not, what kind of career are you truly best suited for?  Do you have the right temperament to be a specialist, someone who can do the same job day after day, year after year, as most people do?  If that is you, do you make up for the monotony at work by having lots of things outside of work that satisfy your need for variety and meaning?  Now make a list of all the different jobs that you have ever fantasized about doing before you retire.  How different are those jobs from the one you do now?  How different are they from each other?  Would you be able to stick with only one for the long haul, or would you more likely have to cycle through them, either one at a time or doing multiple gigs part-time to sustain your interest?  What are you most looking for in a career?  If every career made the same amount of money, which would you choose from among your talents and interests?  What needs do these fantasized careers fill for you that your current career does not?  Before you retire, how many different twists and turns do you imagine your career path taking?  Is that more or less than you imagine other people’s paths taking?  Would you consider yourself a multipotentialite or Renaissance person?  If not, how far from that are you?  Are there people close to you whose interests and passions vary widely and who feel compelled to pursue them no matter how often that sends them off the career ladder?  Is it harder for you to empathize with a specialist or a multipotentialite?  Are you a big believer in people pursuing their passions as a career no matter what, or do you look at it more practically and suggest people pursue their passions as hobbies outside of work instead?  If you had one more career to choose today and stick with until the end, what would it be?  Does that thought experiment stress you out, or is yours an easy answer?  Leave me a reply and let me know: How winding and disjointed is your career path meant to be?

Live your Truth,

William

P.S. If this topic resonated with you today, please share it with your community.  Let us all explore the beauty of our differences.

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

Saying Goodby To Your Childhood

“Growing apart doesn’t change the fact that for a long time we grew side by side; our roots will always be tangled. I’m glad for that.” –Ally Condie, Matched 

“My hometown… was always there, at all times, unchanging. What I think… is not that we go back to our hometowns, but that someday our hometowns come back into each of our hearts.” –Jirō Taniguchi, A Journal Of My Father

Hello friend,

My old man turned 80 years old a few weeks ago.  Eighty!  How the heck did that happen???  Anyway, since it was a big one, my four siblings and I agreed that we would all make the haul back to our hometown to celebrate the guy who made us.  With the exception of last year—the Year Of All Exceptions—I have always gone back for Christmas.  Other than that one annual trip, though, my visits to the place I grew up have been few and far between.  Because I only go at Christmas, when the outside air hurts anything it touches, I really just hang out in my house for the few days I am there, usually taking a couple of walks around my neighborhood to remind myself of who lived in which house all those eons ago when I had the run of the place from sun-up to sun-down.

I am a sucker for nostalgia.  I love pouring back over childhood memories in my mind.  I had a truly enjoyable youth, so I am all smiles when I let my mind swim back through that sea of images.  Getting a texted photo from a sibling or old friend from some long-forgotten event is always a delight for me.  So, walking through my old neighborhood at Christmastime each year, even with my nostrils frozen shut, gives me all the good feelings.

I have been semi-consciously attempting, these last few years, to put a bow on my feelings about the two places that have always felt like childhood home to me.  One is the lake cabin we have been going to since I was a kid, and one is my actual childhood home.  I want to say goodbye to them while they are still in my life, not from a distance when they are suddenly taken away from me by my parents either selling them or dying.  I wouldn’t have a lasting peace about it unless I can fully soak them in and say goodbye (even if I might be back again next year).  As much as I have felt them as an essential part of me and my foundation, I want to let them go gracefully.  Now that I think about it, I guess I am doing that with the people in my life who might be leaving soon, too (but that is a letter for a different day).

To be clear, I am not trying to cut these places (or people) out of my life; I am just trying to be at peace with them and the inevitability of their loss.  I hope this will help me feel less empty when they go, whether that is tomorrow or ten years from now.

I feel like I have done pretty well with this project on my most recent visits home (and to the lake cabin).  I have really felt each of the rooms in the house and taken in their memories and the positive energy they have filled my soul with over the nearly-half-century I have spent there.  I have let myself simultaneously celebrate the memories and mourn the eventual loss of the place from my life.  I have made Peace and truly given each space, including the yard and my neighborhood, a soulful salute, a great big “Namaste.”  I hope to visit again many times, but if I don’t get the chance, I have some measure of closure already in the bank.

However, until this most recent trip back, I sensed that I was missing a key element of the goodbye.  I could feel deep down that I wasn’t satisfied that it was complete, that I hadn’t let it all go.  I hadn’t covered all my bases yet.

You see, on all of those Christmas trips home over the years, when I didn’t leave the house but for the occasional sledding run with the family, I always told myself that I wasn’t missing anything.  I swore that the only place I wanted to hangout in my hometown was in my house (I really do love my house).  I had no desire to go to the local mall to find after-Christmas sales or to the local bars to meet up with old school mates.  I was content to just be home with my family.  In my home.

Going back this time in the Autumn, though, when everything wasn’t so frozen solid, snow-covered, and dark for most of the day, gave me a chance to think about home in a new way.  It let me think about the actual town where all of my memories were made, a town that I once loved very much but haven’t thought much about in recent years.  When everything is frozen over, I sneak in, hunker down in my house, and then sneak back out.  The town goes untouched, unnoticed.  This time, though, coming in off the highway, it felt like a real place, like it had a soul.  I felt the stirrings in my own soul and understood just what had been left undone.  I needed a personal reckoning with my hometown.  I needed to take it all in one more time, to make Peace with it so I could bid it a fond farewell.

So, one afternoon when the kids were busy with their cousins, my wife—who was also raised there but has a very different history and relationship with the place—and I got in the car with the stated intent to “tour the town.”  The only two certain stops on the trip were the old Scandinavian church in a park where we were married and the cemetery where her father is buried.  The rest of the itinerary was left to my whimsy, which is exactly how I like the world to be.

We started off heading to the other end of town, going past a couple of the houses she grew up in (unlike me, she bounced around town a bit), laughing about how small her elementary school looks now and how that walk that felt to her like a mile was really only a couple of blocks.  We pointed out the stores we frequented for candy, and every treasured Dairy Queen.  We kept going past friends’ houses and places we had been to parties or taken late-night drives until we arrived at what used to be the very end of town but is now a bustling neighborhood and huge new school.  I asked for a special favor to go into the tennis club where I used to play as a kid (and later worked).  The lady at the desk indulged me in a quick look around and even gave me an old black-and-white photo that had been left there from the era when I learned tennis, of my first coach, my high school coach, and my former boss, all as young adults in their short-shorts.  The memories came flooding in, and so many emotions rolled over me.  I am so glad we stopped.

Next, we started the long, circuitous journey from the farthest North end of town to the farthest South, weaving our way in a scattered zig-zag from East to West and back whenever a new idea struck me.  We laughed about the old hotels where birthday parties and Homecoming nights took place.  There was the bowling alley where we had gone together before we were officially dating a few decades ago.  It was a sad discovery to drive by the town roller rink I used to go to on Friday nights and see that it was no longer a roller rink; I loved that place.  I had to go by all of my favorite tennis courts where I spent countless hours with friends and foes, every court holding a memory of what was once an all-important match.

We visited all of our schools, including ones that are no longer even there, lost in a flood a decade ago.  Those school memories had no end for me.  There was my elementary school—now with an addition—every teacher and friend so crystal clear to me still.  We went by the football fields outside my middle school where we once shot off the rockets we made in Science class.  Around the back side of my first high school, I thought of the school dances in the pitch-black basement cafeteria.  We drove around on the course where our Driver’s Ed class happened, laughing about “The Serpentine” and parallel parking nightmares.

We stopped at the hill above the high school football field and tennis courts and looked out across the valley of the city.  There was so much of my life in that view: my friends’ houses, my Dad’s workplace, the place I spoke at my high school graduation, the streets I biked and later drove, everything.  In the distance I spotted the college football field in whose parking lot I had my first kiss.  Just down the street from that view, we stopped at that Scandinavian church where I “kissed the bride” on my wedding day.  Everywhere I looked that afternoon, there was some memory to smile about.  This was the town of my childhood.  My childhood was a happy one.  It was worth remembering.

As the years have gone by and I have matured and embraced my Truth, the rose-colored lenses I once viewed the town with have evolved.  As with everything else in my little corner of the world, I have taken a deeper and more critical look at the place.  I have realized some things about being raised there that I wish were not the case, things I was vaguely aware of then but can now put a finer point on.  It was an extremely homogeneous town.  It felt like everyone was White, straight, and Christian, and I am quite sure it was pretty horrible for anyone who did not appear to fit into those strict categories (my wife being one of them).  It was heavily conservative and narrow-minded.  None of the institutions—schools, churches, etc.–did anything to nurture the compassion and progressive values that I hope my current community is modeling for my own kids.  You were treated well if and only if you fit the right description.  At the time, I was quite clueless about how privilege works—which is part of the definition of privilege—and thus no doubt contributed to the culture.

Looking back, all of that makes me sad.  The town could have done a lot more for me than it did.  I am a little bit amazed at how I turned out morally (and, by extension, politically), which makes me feel there is a lot more Nature than Nurture going on.  But there is something I have been working on in my heart and mind in recent months, especially in these times where political (i.e. moral) differences are tearing families and friendships apart, sometimes in one dramatic moment and other times through silence and slow distancing (my people prefer the latter).  Old friends, parents, and siblings, the people whom you have loved and been loved by forever, are not going to survive a measuring by your evolved and refined standards.  They just aren’t.  Your Dad is going to be a racist or misogynist (or both), your sibling is going to be a homophobe, or—clutch the pearls—your childhood bestie is going to be a Democrat (or whatever horrific thing you want to fill in the blank with).  They are going to disappoint you in ways that pain your heart and make you question the wisdom and sanity of every future visit.   My new goal in these interpersonal relationships with people whom I genuinely love but still struggle with their beliefs and actions is to appreciate them for all the things they ARE and HAVE BEEN for me and let go of all the things they ARE NOT and HAVE NEVER BEEN.

This long, circuitous drive let me do the same thing for my hometown.  I got to forgive it for all the things it was not and set that aside so I could fully appreciate it for all the things that it was to me for so long, for what it has helped me to still be all these years later.  There were so many great things about it, so many places all over the town that gave me happy thoughts.  I saw the place through the rose-colored glasses of my youth—I guess I always will–and I loved it all over again for one beautiful afternoon.  Not only did I love it, though; I appreciated it.  Through my nostalgic grins and chuckles and “I-remember-whens,” I got to give the place that made me one final, grateful salute.  An honest, heartfelt Thanks for everything.  And with it, a Goodbye.

I needed that Goodbye.

How about you?  What is your connection to your hometown?  Open up your journal and take a deep dive into the sea of your childhood memories.  What was your town like when you were a kid?  Do you have memories from around the entire town or mostly just your neighborhood and schools?  Where did your friends live?  How close was your house to school?  How big was your range for “going out to play”?  Were you on your bike a lot?  What was your relationship to school?  Did you like your teachers?  How many friends did you have?  Where did you go to buy candy or other treats?  Where did you usually play?  Whose houses were you comfortable in?  What were your favorite things to do?  As you got into your teens and high school, how did your friend group change?  How did your feelings about school change?  How much more of the town did you cover once cars entered the scene?  What activities were you involved in?  Did your activities connect you with different parts of the town and new friends from a broader area?  How much of your town were you familiar with?  Could you always find your way home?  What about the town itself?  Did it have any unique features?  What were the main hangouts when you were in high school?  At the time, would you have said you liked the town?  Do you remember your time there fondly?  Were you dying to get out when you finished school?  How big of a role did the town’s places—its parks, schools, movie theaters, malls, etc.—play in your enjoyment of it?  How would you, as a kid, have described your town’s population and culture?  How has that view changed as you have aged?  Do you have a clearer sense now of the town’s general attitudes and cultural leanings then?  Does this evolution make you view your childhood and feelings for the town differently?  What is your relationship with your hometown now?  Do you visit?  Do you have friends and family there?  Would you go back if they weren’t still there?  If you still live there or have moved back, what is the draw?  What makes the place special?  Is it the same things that were special to you when you were a kid?  If you don’t still live there, what is your attitude toward the people who do?  Are you more like, “That is so cool!” or “What is wrong with you?”  Wherever you live, are you able to see the shortcomings of your hometown or ways you wish it had better treated you or prepared you for the world?  Do you feel like the town provided you with your values or that you either brought them to the scene or developed them in spite of the town?  What things about your hometown are you appalled by?  Given where you are in your life right now and who you are, would it be a good fit for you?  Would you choose to raise kids there or recommend it to others?  Do you wish you were raised elsewhere?  Have you forgiven it for all that it wasn’t for you?  Even if you dislike some or much of it, are you still able to think fondly of the places and people that you liked when you were a kid?  Are you able to be grateful you lived there?  If you no longer live there, have you taken the time and effort to make peace with the place?  Have you done a stroll down Memory Lane—either in your memory or an actual drive like I did—to say a true goodbye to all the spots in town that live in your heart?  If you never saw the place again, would that sit alright with you?  If not, what can you do to rectify that feeling and get some closure, if anything?  Will you?  Leave me a reply and let me know: Have you said a real goodbye to your hometown and your childhood?

I wish you Peace,

William

P.S. If this resonated with you today, I hope you will share it.  Sometimes people need a nudge along their path to Peace.

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

Are You Giving LIFE Your Best Shot?

“At the age of six I wanted to be a cook.  At seven I wanted to be Napoleon.  And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since.” –Salvador Dali

“I go dreaming into the future, where I see nothing, nothing.  I have no plans, no idea, no project, and, what is worse, no ambition.  Something—the eternal ‘what’s the use?’—sets its bronze barrier across every avenue that I open up in the realm of hypothesis.” –Gustave Flaubert, Flaubert in Egypt: A Sensibility On Tour

Hello friend,

Last weekend I finished up my first (and probably last) season as a middle school volleyball coach.  It was my daughter’s team.   They were desperate for a coach so they could start the season, so I swallowed my insecurities about never having played organized volleyball in my life and jumped in to lead them.  I had spent years as a professional tennis coach and worked with middle schoolers many times, so I wasn’t worried about dealing with the kids.  But it’s a totally different sport, so I definitely went in feeling like a fish out of water.  I discovered immediately, though, that I liked it.  The old coach in me jumped right back into that zone, and I found myself quite invigorated by each practice and game.  I was teaching and learning at the same time, a perfect recipe for me.

The one thing that struck me from the very first practice was the reminder of how painfully shy and awkward most kids—both girls and boys—are in middle school.  It is like you can cut the insecurity in the room with a knife.  I have always believed that if there is one thing I would like to be able to bottle and give to every child (and adult, really), it is self-belief.  We miss out on so, so much simply because we lack the confidence to put ourselves out there and try something new or hard or both.  We play small and stay in our shell, living life with our MUTE button pressed upon our souls.  The missed opportunities pile on top of one another: deep conversations, social clubs or sports, new friendships, leadership roles, job applications or promotions, love interests, or just the last slice of pizza.  Lack of self-belief leads to lack of luck and lack of the best, juiciest things in Life.  It cascades.  All the fun that goes un-had and all the magic that goes unclaimed.  I find it deeply tragic.

In that first volleyball practice, I met a girl we will call Tamara, who seemed particularly afflicted with this crippling self-doubt.  When it came time to work on serving, I went through all of the technical points of the overhand serve and then set the kids loose to try it for themselves.  She cautiously approached me and, eyes cast down, asked if she could just serve underhand.  I explained to her that one of the goals at this age is to serve overhand instead of the underhanded variety that kids learn in elementary school, so we were all going to give it a shot.  It was built into the rules of our league that kids should try the overhand serve on their first attempt, and if they couldn’t get it, a “mulligan”/second serve would be given, during which they could settle for the weaker underhand serve if absolutely necessary.  Tamara was a big, strong girl, though, so I told her I believed she had what it took to serve overhand.  She was clearly dubious about that and very disappointed, but I poured on the encouragement.  By the third practice, she was looking like our best server.  When our first game rolled around, she asked to serve first.  It was amazing!  I was tickled and felt that old gratification that a coach feels when a player overcomes their doubts and fears to achieve something they hadn’t thought possible.  It’s that magic that keeps old coaches coaching.

Tamara was marching along beautifully for a few games, claiming the serve to start every game.  I was feeding her belief with everything I had.  She was winning us free points with her power and depth.  She was rolling.  Then, she had a game where she missed a few.  It really got into her head, immediately.  On a timeout, she came to me with the sunken eyes again: “Can I serve underhand from now on?”  It totally floored me.  As a guy who has a lot of self-confidence (and who hasn’t coached in a while), I was caught off-guard by how quickly her belief had melted away.  I told her that technically she was allowed to, but that I hoped she would stick with it.  I pointed out that despite the misses, she was scoring more points for us with her best shot than she was costing us with it.  Crushed and dubious, she stuck with it for the rest of that game and found her rhythm again.  After the match, I teased her, “Don’t ever ask me that again!”

We made our way through the final weeks of the season with Tamara serving well and got to the last tournament, when she again hit a rough patch and again asked if she could serve underhand.  I told her no, she could not, and that she was better for the team when she went for her best shot.  It was hard to watch her struggle so much with her self-confidence; it was obvious how fragile her belief in herself was and how quickly it abandoned her.

The tournament ended, and with it the realization that I will probably never see Tamara again.  We had developed a nice rapport through this adventure with her serving and my belief in her, and probably because of that, her agonizing self-doubt really left an impression on me.  I stewed on it for a few days, feeling like I wanted to leave her with one last parting shot that, just maybe, she could take with her for the rest of her life.  I found her email address and wrote her a short note to thank her for playing.  I ended it with this:

Life is like your volleyball serve. There will be setbacks along the way and moments when you lose confidence in yourself, but if you can somehow look at the bigger picture and realize how much better you are when you trust yourself and go for your best version, you and those around you come out so much better for it. Believe in yourself. Life deserves your overhand serve, and so do you.  All the best to you in your bright future, Coach William

Writing that note to Tamara got me thinking about my own life, wondering how well I have done and how well I am currently doing at giving it my own version of the overhand serve.  It is a tough question, because I think you have to look beyond obvious risks and accomplishments to find the truth (well, I hope you do).  It is convenient for me to look back at certain times in my adulthood and say, “See, I took my shot!”  I went to Hollywood in my early twenties to take a shot at acting.  I climbed the ladder to a position of power in my first “real” career field.  I took a chance on a cross-country love that turned out to be the love of my life.  I achieved a long-time dream of writing a book.  I take a regular shot when I write these letters to you.  I can point to all of these things when I am put before the judge to plead my case that I am living like I mean it.  But is that stuff enough?  Is my case really all that convincing?

Some days at work, if I am in the midst of a mind-numbing task, I wonder to myself, “Is this the best I can do?”  If I get late in the week and I haven’t come up with a topic I deem worthy of a letter to you and so decide to let the week pass and settle for trying next week, I think, “This feels like playing small.”  When weeks and months go by and I don’t feel myself making an impact on other people’s lives, I feel my tension rise with the thought, “The clock is ticking down on my time here, and I am not doing enough.”

I am not sure what taking a bigger swing would look like for me right now.  Is it a career change?  Writing a new book?  Running for political office?  The pressure seems to be more embedded in the question, “Am I doing enough?”  Of course, that question comes through in different versions: Can I justify my existence?  Is this set of choices fulfilling?  Am I living my purpose?  Am I okay with this as my legacy?  Am I happy?

I find myself in a lull when it comes to notable achievements.  I have not blasted any life goals, passed any major milestones, or won any prizes lately.  Even more, I don’t feel myself striving for a particular prize with any great urgency.  I am kind of gliding along.  Given my propensity to seek out the next mountain to climb, this current gliding makes me suspicious.  I must be doing something wrong to be so unambitious.  Shouldn’t I be more antsy?  Why am I not climbing the walls and plotting to take over the world?  Surely this is not my best shot.  Right?

And yet, I am unmistakably happy.  I enjoy my days.  I love giving as much time as I do to my family, even as I am aware of it coming at a cost of my time for other, more aspirational accomplishments.  I like my hobbies and want to devote even more time to them, even though I won’t win any of the popular prizes for them.  So many of the things that I am looking forward to and orienting my time around are just fun.  They are peace-inducing.  Lots of good-for-the-soul kind of stuff.  I am kept busy doing things that I enjoy.  I’ve heard that’s a version of living the good life.

So, why do I still feel that nagging thought about doing more and bigger?  Why did my note to Tamara about not settling for the Life version of the underhand serve make me wonder if it wasn’t addressed as much to me as to her?  Why does this stretch of time without a significant achievement make me feel guilty and a little ashamed?

I realize that Life requires a balance of contentment and ambition.  I also have come to realize that there are seasons in our lives that will lean more heavily, even completely, into one or the other.  For me, at least, I cannot keep my nose constantly to the grindstone; I have learned to listen to my system’s signals that it needs a recharge.  That has helped keep my creative juices flowing more consistently and fueled my passions for work and other interests.  But I am also learning lately that it is possible for me to get too indulgent and lose my edge.  For instance, if I go too long between letters to you, as I have done more in the last year, I get a little antsy.  I need that regular challenge to keep my sword sharpened, to feel fully engaged in Life itself, and my purpose in it.  It is a good thing to understand this about myself; it keeps me from getting lost.

So, am I giving Life my overhand serve right now?  In a way, no.  I am not ambitiously attacking a long-held dream or newfound passion project.  But in another way, I think I am hitting it just solidly and aggressively enough for what the moment calls for.  I am understanding where I am right now in my cycle and responding in a way that makes me feel happy.  It won’t last forever, I know.  I will have to adjust as my ambitions flare.  But I trust that if I keep at my daily journaling and my quest for self-awareness and present mindfulness—and continue to believe that I have what it takes to rise to the occasion–I will keep adjusting the volume on my serve to meet the needs of my sensitive-yet-demanding soul.  If I can stay on that razor’s edge, I think I can find a way to always keep it overhand.

How about you?  Are you giving Life your best shot, or are you playing small?  Open your journal and unpack your Truth.  Does your self-belief have you striving for your best life?  Perhaps it is easier to go back in your life story and follow your journey step-by-step as it relates to self-belief and the actions you have taken to decide your fate.  How bold were you while growing up?  Did you have the confidence to try things that you thought might interest you?  Were you okay with struggle and failure if the endeavor was interesting or fun for you?  Can you think of times when fear and insecurity kept you from trying something new (e.g. auditioning for a play or asking someone on a date)?  If you had those moments and played small, how long (if ever) did it take for you to realize it?  Were you able to learn from your meekest moments and then rise to similar moments later on?  As you moved into adulthood, what was your level of self-belief?  How did that affect the choices you made regarding Life stuff like career aspirations and relationships?  Did you go for the things you dreamed about?  Did you try new things?  How open were you to meeting new people and joining new groups?  Did you believe yourself worthy of a wonderful romantic partner?  Can you point to specific moments in young adulthood when you bet on yourself or took a real chance to get what you wanted?  How did that work out?  Conversely, do you recall certain moments when you played small and hid your light, perhaps not believing you were worthy or ready for the best things?  How much regret do you carry from those small moments?  How have they shaped your life in the years since?  Where do you find yourself lately when it comes to self-belief and the level of ambition behind your life choices?  Are you still taking shots at your dreams and striving for your vision of a “best life,” or are you mostly floating along without much ambition?  If you lack ambition, do you think that reflects more that you are basically satisfied with your life or that you don’t feel yourself worthy of more?  As you look back through the years and the changes along your journey, do you see an ebb and flow in your level of ambition and boldness?  Do you have seasons of contentment and ease, followed by seasons where you really strive for something big (e.g. getting an advanced degree or writing a book or gunning for a promotion)?  Do you tend more toward the ease or more toward the striving?  How has that changed over time?  Do you feel more or less urgency as you age?  What was the last big shot you took?  What will be your next one?  If you don’t have anything on your horizon, do you think that means it is time to find something?  Or does that mean you are simply living right?  On the whole, would you say your life is an underhand serve or an overhand serve?  Leave me a reply and let me know: Are you giving Life your best shot?

Embody self-belief,

William

P.S. If today’s letter resonated with you, please share it with your community.  We rise by lifting others.

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

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

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

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

Hello friend,

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

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

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

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

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

But should we ignore them?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Take care of yourself,

William

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

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

A Lost Year: Reflections On My Coronavirus Anniversary

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

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

Hello friend,

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

Last year.

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

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

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

And that was only the beginning…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Onward and upward,

William

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

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