20130521 – Sitting and Running

Well, here I am, sitting in the customers’ waiting area while my truck, car, SUV, or whatever I’m supposed to call it, let’s call it my “vehicle”, is being serviced. Replacing a power door lock actuator and mounting an old tire on a new rim apparently involves two visits; one to diagnose the problem and order parts, and the second to have the replacement parts installed. I wonder if parts departments actually have parts in stock anymore. One Saturday morning and one weekday morning shot. Oh, well, just some ripples on the pond my friends.

On a side note, the customer waiting area here is nicely arranged, with a conversation “pit” headed by a flat screen TV on a tall and wide credenza and centered on a large elongated coffee table surrounded by about ten decent sized easy chairs, close enough for conversation but separated just enough to permit the occupant his privacy if so desired. Just around the corner is a grouping of bar-height tables and stools, alongside which can be found coffee and the popcorn machine, overflowing with fresh movie-theater popcorn at 8:30 in the morning, how cool is that (well for a popcorn lover anyway)! Behind the TV against the wall are two cubicles for customers who absolutely insist on being productive while waiting for their vehicles. This morning I find myself in one of those cubicles rather than my much preferred breakfast venue where I could be chatting with friends as well as Ernesto, Linda, and the crew.

In the meantime I can always blog a little, and dive into a new (previously owned?) book on Behaviour Analysis in Training, © 1977; formerly housed at the University Library, Golden Gate University, San Francisco, and apparently withdrawn for non-use, having been checked out once each in 1978, 1980, and 1982. Wha-a-a-t, you might ask? Yeah, sounds awfully textbookish, doesn’t it? And why am I misspelling behavior? Well it is kind of a textbook because I’m learning the secrets of valid statistical analysis for some specialized data analysis and reporting I’ll be doing for a consulting partner. Guess things haven’t changed too much in a third of a century in this arena. And the consulting partner happens to be a native of the UK, as is the acquaintance of his who wrote the book, which explains the Queen’s English spelling and grammar. I hope he doesn’t expect me to reset my Spell Checker for writing reports in a non-American English dialect.

I always enjoy learning new(?) things so I expect this to be an interesting adventure, despite that it involves post graduate studies in behavior analysis, training, and statistics. It’s only one book. The neat thing is I get to apply that knowledge immediately in my work, that’s the practical side of learning as you go. College often is hard for people; it was for me, because the application of knowledge is frequently delayed for months or years.

Unfortunately the TV in the background is distracting; Moore, Oklahoma. Heartbreaking stories, heartwarming stories, such devastation in such a short time. I don’t mind admitting I’m a man who isn’t afraid to let some emotion out; I’m just glad I’m in a cubical facing a wall so the other customers don’t see my red eyes. Most often it’s been firefighters and police officers on the front lines, demonstrating true heroism in the face of extreme danger and adversity. Yesterday it was teachers sheltering students with their bodies; like it was at Sandy Hook. Ordinary people, called to extraordinary courage in the face of inconceivable horror. What would you do, how would you respond?

Back to learning, I hope I never stop. On my deathbed, in the waning moments of my life, I want to be learning. When I graduated from MSU I must admit I was happy to be done with 16 years of school, and to be getting on with my life. That was forty years ago. It took five years after that for me to be ready for more formal education and three years more to complete my Masters degree. But since then I’ve taken continuing education classes in my chosen profession almost every year of my life. And when I wasn’t studying for my profession I was teaching myself things like home construction, electrical work, plumbing, pond design, construction and maintenance, computer programming and assembly, website programming and maintenance, starting new businesses, managing finances, and just trying to keep up with changes in information technology. And these days my learning is taking on a new perspective.

Living in the sandwich kind of forces you into learning about many different subjects; things like Medicare, health insurance, diseases of mind and body, estate planning, powers of attorney, wills and trusts. I’m learning to deal with the many challenges of aging, and of caring for aging parents. At the same time I’m learning more about what’s going on with the younger crowd, how to understand their language, how to open up more in my own communication, and how to be friends with my kids. Sometimes I find the communication uncomfortable and sometimes just plain fun, but rarely boring. Hmmm, the soup of life, or maybe soup and a sandwich? Now I’m thinking about Panera; yeah, I missed breakfast.

Sitting, distracted, but learning; always learning…

And now service guy Joe is telling me my vehicle is ready. He looked for me a few minutes ago but didn’t see my hat (I took it off) and assumed I was out getting breakfast. I guess he gave me a little extra time to get this post done. The hat seems to have become my trademark…

So I’m off and running: pharmacy, Comcast, appliance store, zoo (donating some used towels for animal care), and all before 11:45. Not a bad morning. Since I feel like I finally earned a meal, and I’m close to another favorite dining haunt, it’s time for a stop at Mr. Burger, a place I’ve frequented off and on for more than thirty years. The people are always nice, breakfast is big and served anytime (and of course as you already know, my favorite meal of the day), and it feels like home in a way. It’s a good spot for a little centering and contemplation, and to wrap up this post.

Sorry my friends that I can’t offer much in the way of words of wisdom for the day. Then again, life in the sandwich isn’t always about big ideas; sometimes, and I know I’m repeating myself, it’s just about putting one foot in front of the other.

Off and running again; oops, can’t forget the hat…

-Pops

20130514 – Happiness and Strawberries

More life in the moment …

Yesterday I read a little post titled “Sunday Sermon” by fellow blogger Bob, and it struck me as if it were a common theme I’ve been hearing for weeks. Oh; it is. He talked about getting past our sense of not being happy today because we’re thinking about the future and what we want, or the past and what we had. Then my daughter posted about self-imposed stress and maybe just letting the kiddos go at their own pace. And my DIL (daughter-in-law) posted about her upcoming extremely busy and stressful week.

I’m very much a planner and a daydreamer, always thinking about what’s the next step in the plan, and what haven’t I planned for, and remembering what life used to be like when I was a twenty-something husband with a wife and a dog and a condo on the edge of the mountains. Of course I was a planner and a dreamer back then too, but we had a lot of simple and good times in between the planning and the dreaming while living a relatively unencumbered lifestyle. Life has gotten a lot more complicated since then, and these days we seem to enjoy precious few of those simple and good times we used to love.

In his message, Blogger Bob related the story of the monk being chased by a tiger when he suddenly found himself at the edge of a huge cliff. Facing a choice between certain death and … certain death, he stepped off into the abyss. Grasping an extended root he briefly interrupted his journey to his unavoidable fate, and saw that he was facing a beautiful and luscious strawberry growing from the chasm’s wall. Unable to return to the brink and face the tiger, and with his strength and grip ebbing away he savored the beauty, and tasted the fruit, and happily and fully lived his last moment.

We’re all facing certain death. For the monk, it was a matter of seconds, it was immediate. For us it’s a matter of unknown seconds, minutes, hours, days, years; it’s a lifetime by whatever measure. How many of us live in the moment? How many of us take the time to be happy with the present? It is, after all, a gift. The past is history, we can’t change it. Tomorrow never really comes. The present, the gift of time, of now, is all we really have. Kind of a sobering thought.

OK, so now the practical side of me is kicking in. What if I need work to support my family? What if I want to watch my grandkids grow and spend time with them? What if I lose someone I love? What if my kids get sick? What if my dad needs elder care? What if I make it to retirement age? Surely I need to plan for all this stuff, just in case?

Well yes, I do, but that planning doesn’t need to keep me from being happy. After all, even God plans. I know it because He has a plan for each of us, doesn’t He? All of His creation is evidence of His plan. And if you don’t believe in a Creator or Supreme Being, isn’t a little planning a useful tool in helping you manage your life and weed out the things you do and do not want to accomplish? We planned for our kids, and savored the moments of their births. We planned a monster vacation fifteen years ago, and lived in every moment of every day. We also had unplanned job changes, and unplanned illnesses, and scary test results, and we rolled with the punches. We weren’t necessarily happy but we accepted and dealt with the challenges as they presented themselves. And here we are.

So, all that being said, I hereby resolve to find happiness wherever and whenever I can; and not dwell on what I want but don’t have or what I had a long time ago, as in yesterday. I resolve to plan my work; i.e., my life, but only just enough, and joyfully work my plan, while accepting and engaging in the serendipitous and spontaneous opportunities that constantly reveal themselves. I resolve to look for, admire the beauty of, and taste the richness of the strawberries.

Doing my best to welcome serendipity and live in the moments I’m given …

- Pops

20130423-2 – On the Same Bus, or Just the Same Road

Living in the sandwich can be frustrating. You begin thinking about changes you want to make in your life and start getting excited about them. Then by habit, or necessity I suppose, you begin considering how changing part of the sandwich will affect the rest. If I change the protein, what about the cheese, what about the condiments, what about the tasty outsides that hold it all together? Maybe the changes will be too great and will have too much impact on the other people in my life. What if the whole sandwich falls apart? Maybe I’m stuck with the same old sandwich, the status quo, with waiting for changes to happen around me that free me up to make the changes I want, no, need to make.

When I wrote about planning for the future a few weeks ago I figured I was pretty comfortable with what I should do with my life. It seemed that spending time with my family and being in some kind of ministry to others were two of the most important ways I could make a difference. It seemed like helping people become better than they were was what I could contribute to the business world in some small way. It seemed like recharging by exploring this tremendous country I live in was necessary to strengthening myself for the other things I needed to do. And it seemed like building my faith through worship and study and prayer would firm up the glue that holds me together. Thinking about it, I’m getting comfortable with what I love about my life and what I want out of life.

I guess what I worry about are the specifics. Maybe “what” isn’t the issue, maybe it’s the how, where and when. I believe that God opens doors that He intends us to walk through. There’s a life to be lived out there, and it shouldn’t be by default, it should be intentional.

Then again, living in the sandwich isn’t living by default. In fact, it is living very intentionally. It is sharing plans and ideas, and figuring out how it all works together. All of us in this sandwich want the best for each other, but if we don’t share, we won’t know how to help. Maybe we’re not really on the same bus, but just caravanning on the same road. At any point some of us may choose to take a different route, hopefully with the support and encouragement of the rest.

Hmm, I think the frustration is fading a bit.

Adjusting my thinking, and my attitude…

-Pops

20130507 – What Makes You Smile?

I was out for my (becoming routine) two mile walk yesterday morning when I realized the sun on my face was making me smile. Then I greeted some other walkers and found myself smiling again; and it got me to thinking about what it is that I find myself smiling at. Here’s the short list (with a little thought it would be much longer):

A mother and preschooler sharing breakfast at McDonalds; the sun on my face; a warm car on a cold winter day; tree blossoms in the spring; flowers; fish in the pond; frogs croaking into the night; a warm summer evening; a late night thundershower with the window open;  an empty highway ahead of me; kids walking home from the bus stop; a dad playing with his kids on the trampoline; my granddaughter calling out “Pop-pop!”; hugs; people walking their dogs; dogs walking their people; a greeting from a fellow walker; sunset over the lake; sailboats, big and small; the men’s group engrossed in debate; a friend’s successful transplant; another friend kicking colon cancer’s butt; a day without heart arrhythmia; glucose below 100; parents and kids holding hands; coming home to a dark family room with son and daughter-in-law snuggled in watching a movie; seeing my wife’s tears at a happy ending; holding hands with her; her sleeping on my shoulder; a walk on a warm sunny day; two little dogs curled up asleep on my brother; my family chattering away while I listen; a starry night by the campfire; anticipation of camping in a new place; an inexperienced Robin Williams trying to dump his holding tanks in front of an audience of campers in the movie ‘RV’; snuggling under a blanket in front of the fireplace on a bitter cold winter evening; singing a beautiful anthem; listening to great music; tears of appreciation for a well-wisher’s thank you; an emotional musical worship experience.

Distinctive by their absence from that list are things like money in the bank, paid for cars, a steady job, a semi-solvent retirement plan, etc.

Why? Maybe it’s the difference between what merely satisfies my need for security, and what makes me happy. Don’t get me wrong, when I count my blessings, security counts, particularly financial security, and I’m thankful for that. But what really counts are the intangibles, the experiences, just being in the moment, or maybe living life intentionally for some of those perfect moments.

At the end of the day I hope I’ve counted way more smiles than I have things. I hope that for you, too.

Counting my blessings, and mostly my smiles…

-Pops