Where have all the hippies gone?

Where have all the hippies gone?  Long time ago. Where have all the hippies gone? Long time passing.  Gone to corporate lawyers.  Gone to Wall Street bankers. Gone to the suburbs.  Long time ago.  Long time ago. When will we ever learn?  When will we ever learn?

No doubt many of you will remember with some nostalgia, the Vietnam War Protests, the Free Love, Free Speech, Civil Rights and Women’s Liberation movements of the sixties.  The goals (even if they were never articulated as such) of the hippies and protesters of the sixties was to create a just society that was more clearly aligned with the principles and values of the founding fathers.  In 1776, the pragmatism as well as the culture dictated that not all “Americans” would share in the dream of the right to pursue life, liberty and happiness. Not all members of America were included in this founding father’s dream and by the early sixties; this smoldering situation was ready to burst into flames. America was rife with injustice and inconsistencies and a generation brought up on the ideas and values of American freedom and justice for all were ready to fight and march and protest to change things.

Looking back nearly fifty years, I remember my first wife Julie had been attending the University of Wisconsin at Madison in the sixties when it came to several students’ attention that the local Eagles club was excluding Black people from membership.  My wife joined a protest with several other students who picketed the Eagles Aerie.  Some years later, we both joined a group called PACE, which stood for People Acting through Community Effort.  We researched banks and organizations that had instituted Redlining in our community and we helped to organize boycotts and protests of these organizations.  So where have all the hippies gone? 

I often wonder when I look at the past few decades of greed, incredible debt, huge deficits, 10,000 square foot homes and increased intolerance towards the poor and immigrants where the hippies have all gone.  Who was it said, “I have met the enemy and he is us.”  Did we simply run out of energy or was the seduction of power and wealth too strong to overcome? Did all the hippies morph into bank officers and corporate CEO’s or were they brainwashed into moving to the suburbs and watching NFL football every weekend? 

If I go onto Amazon.com and look up the subject of “sixties” under books here are the first few titles of over 17,000 books on the subject that you will find:

The images and titles of these books no doubt bring back memories to many of you. Hippies, protest marches, psychedelics, peace signs, changing times, pot and hope are only a few of the icons we raised.  These are now the stuff of “once upon a time” and old faded memories.  I wonder where all the hippies went?  Are they sitting around reading books on the sixties and wondering how pot bellies replaced beach bodies?  Or are they all applying for social security benefits and hoping to find that foursome on the golf course in the sun? 

For me, the dream of the sixties became the exigencies of the seventies.  I went back to school in 1971 after serving in the military during the Vietnam War from 1964-1968. I got married, had a baby and became focused on supporting my family and “getting ahead.”  I became the “me” generation and wanted to be rich and successful.  The only true metric of any value seemed to be to make more money.  I wanted to be known for something and to be SOMEBODY. I also wanted to be secure from debt and poverty. 

To this day, I can’t say with any honesty that I have escaped these desires.  I vacillate between Gates and Buffett and OHSO and Tolle.  It is like being torn between two competing dreams both offering the path to happiness.  What is the real secret of life?  Does it lie in material fulfillment or spiritual fulfillment? The world is a large labyrinth with paths leading in both directions.  I find myself often lost in this maze of admonitions, directions and proverbs. Did the other hippies get lost in here as well? 

Were you ever a hippie or protestor?  Where did your hippie go?  Why is being a hippie now considered wrong by some people?  What values did hippies have that we should admire?  Should we all be part hippie? What is wrong with protesting against injustice? Why are so many people against the Occupy movement?  Would we rather the young generation simply tolerate injustice and get along with business as usual?  

What is a New York Minute like?

A New York minute is an interesting term.  A New York minute is a fast, frantic, in-year-face, speedy and harried measure of time.  It is the opposite of the stereotypical Southern minute where time is slow and unhurried. Years ago, if you had been to Alabama and New York, you would have seen the difference in time immediately. Of course, today everyplace is changing and (I fear) there has been an exorable move towards the NY standard.  I am from New York and despite having lived in the Midwest for over thirty years; I still get accused of being on New York time. Probably because I do almost everything fast and have been multi-tasking before the word was coined.  In my own mind, I have slowed down considerably from when I was an “East Coaster” and I enjoy the Midwest because things (at least when I first arrived) seemed slower and mellower out here. Perhaps, it has to do with the farm cycle versus the industrial cycle.

It is interesting that we allow time zones to measure our time but we don’t use “specific place” zones, except in slang.  For instance, how would a Minneapolis minute compare to a San Francisco minute or a New England minute?  Today, they might all be about the same.  Thus, the term a NY minute is slowly passing out of use as we all become mini New Yorkers.  However, there are still places in the world that are not on NY time and perhaps you will get to visit one someday.  Even in parts of the US, there are places where the culture is not vested in moving fast.  One can take a trip to the Boundary Waters in Northern Minnesota or up Lake Chelan in Washington to Holden Village.  At these places, the emphasis is not on how many things you can get done or how much you can accomplish in 24 hours. There is a totally different emphasis.

In the Boundary Waters, you smell the flowers and you live according to paddle time or fishing time.  At Holden Village, the emphasis is on spirituality and finding your true center of being.  At both places, you forget time and you begin to live by the more ancient cycles of the sun, moon and stars.  I have been to both of these places and I want to go back someday. The peace and serenity you find at each is truly beyond description.

Have you ever been to New York? Where would you like to go that is not on NY time? How do you expect time would be for you there? What if time was like that for you right here and now?  What if in your own residence, you could set your own time standards? What would they be?  Would you slow your life down or speed it up? What do you think a good measure of a life well lived would be? 

Take the time today to reflect on a bad decision you made

Yesterday, I went to a Men’s group meeting in Luck, Wisconsin.  This is an interesting group of men led by Mr. Dan Beal, a former high school principal.  They have been meeting every other Wednesday for over eight years now. Each meeting, one man hosts a subject or idea or topic for discussion.  With plenty of coffee and snacks, the group meets for about two hours and shares their ideas on the subject.  Good fun, fellowship and camaraderie are had by all.  In addition, one always learns something from sharing ideas with other people. The subject for yesterday’s discussion was selected by Russ Hanson and dealt with selecting a single decision in our lives that we most regretted and then speculating on “what would our lives have been like” if we had chosen another decision.

I tried very hard for a week to think of a single decision that I regretted and that I would do over. I could not come up with one. I called my friend Bruce and ran this by him.  He said “It does not seem doable. How could you make another decision?”  I agreed with this perspective but it seemed somewhat arrogant to say that there was nothing in my life that could not be changed or perhaps another road I should have taken.  I decided to use the following decision as the basis for my contribution to the group. I wrote it out as follows:

I made this decision when I turned 18 years old.  The year was 1964.  I made it a time right after high school when I could not get into college and the Vietnam War was building up.  The decision I made has profoundly affected my life ever since.  Indeed it is probably the single most important decision I have made in my entire life.  Its repercussions still affect my life to this day.

I decided to go into the USAF.  You may ask why and here are my reasons:

1.       I liked the uniforms and thought they would attract more women.
2.        I assumed it took more brains to be in the Air Force than the Army or Marines
3.       I had some vague ideas about being a war hero 
4.          I was sick of living at home and wanted to see the world

I note that this decision was a major mistake.  I will not bother you with the myriad reasons why. Suffice it to say, that none of my reasons really panned out. Thus, the path I should have trod, the decision I should have made was this:  I should have joined the US Marines.  You asked us to speculate as best we could on the changes that this decision would have made in our lives.  However, I can safely say that in my case, this is not mere speculation but true unadulterated fact. I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that had I joined the Marines and been a Jar Head instead of a Wing Nut the following changes would have occurred in my life:

•            I would have had relations with a lot more women. Maybe as many as Wilt Chamberlain and that is as some of you know more than 20,000 women.  It turns out, according to reliable statistics, that the Marine uniform is very sexy to a great deal more women than the US Air Force uniform or most any other uniforms.

•            I would quickly have been selected for OCS and risen in time to at least a 3 star General.  I would have been decorated many times over, seen true combat and no doubt have been at least awarded a Silver Star, a ticker tape parade on Broadway and a meeting with then President Lyndon B. Johnson, whom I might add I subsequently met but that is another story.

•            As a result of my war hero status, I would have pursued a career in politics and easily have become a US Senator from Wisconsin and perhaps even run for President of the US. With my brains, good looks and military connections, It is highly likely I would have become the next president of the United States instead of Richard Milhous Nixon.

•           I would now be receiving a tremendous pension. I would be rich beyond belief and living in a great big mansion near Bone Lake where I would be protected by a whole bunch of secret service men who no doubt would be partying with local women even as I speak.

•             And last, most important and not least, if I had been a US Marine instead of an Air Force wing nut, I would have a really cool tattoo of a bull dog on my right arm instead of the bare skin that now adorns it.

Thank you for allowing me to share my fateful decision with you all here today. I can only hope that if the Hindus are right and I am reborn again, I will make the right choice on my second time around.

By the way, for those of you who might have missed it, there is a moral to this story: Clothes really do make the man!

Well that is my talk and my contribution to the discussion.  Now it is your turn. What decisions have you made that if you had your life to do over, you would change? Why would you change it?  How would your life be different today if you had? 

Are you always right on time or are you the waitee?

Right on time!  This phrase could be seen as a compliment.  I would guess most of us would take it that way.  Another way of looking at it might be to say, you were correct or exactly on the time we agreed on. Whatever way you look at it, most of us appreciate it when someone is “right on time.” Generally we reply to a compliment with a “thank you.”  However, few people ever seem to answer: “thank you” to someone who is on time.  I wonder why we don’t seem to recognize people who are complimenting us for being on time?  Do we simply expect people to be on time? Therefore, it is not really worth a real compliment. 

If you think about it, being on time is not such a common phenomenon.  In fact, if you think about it, it is not very common at all.  How many times each week have you gone to a meeting that started late or that several people showed up late for?  How many events that you showed up for on time started late?  I have often seen them delay a plane take off because a bunch of people were arriving late.  Of course, I feel bad for the people who might miss their flight but I am also concerned over my connections and missing my departure schedules. You are sitting on the plane wondering how long they will wait for the late comers.

Being on time is not a natural state of affairs.  People who are on time have to work at it. It is not easy to be on time.  A great deal of effort, responsibility and planning are needed to be “right on time.”  Any time someone does something that makes your life more pleasant, isn’t it worth a compliment?  When people show up on time, it makes my life easier and more pleasant. No one today has a great deal of time to waste just sitting around waiting for someone who is irresponsible and thoughtless. Yes, sometimes accidents happen.  However, have you ever noticed that they always seem to happen to the same people? The same people are late over and over again.  Thus, maybe we should note those people who work at being on time. 

What if you started thanking the people in your life who were right on time?  How would they react?  Would they feel more appreciated? Would you like to be more appreciated for the effort you make to be right on time?  Would being acknowledged for or acknowledging the effort by others to be right on time make any difference in your friendships or in your life? 

Has the recession taught us the value of long-term thinking?

A common refrain in many organizations is “Always time to do it over, never time to do it right.”  How often have you seen this in your company? When I was consulting, it was one of the most popular problems we dealt with.  I would repeatedly hear employees use these words to describe how things were done in their workplace.  It was no wonder that American quality fell behind that of the Japanese during the eighties. We became a country where we did little or no long term thinking or planning. Our planning horizon was sixteen weeks.  This is the length of time between quarterly reports. Our goal was firmly fixed on the corporate stock price. Could we have a more fickle or less worthwhile target?  We are so busy doing things short term that we find it easier to fix the problems this creates rather than thinking things through and avoiding the problems in the first place. We ignore the old admonition that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

When I look back to the date I started consulting (September 1986), I ask myself, “Have we changed?” As a nation and as a people, are we looking any more long-term? Have we moved away from simplistic measures of success? Are we looking at more forward thinking or are we still primarily reacting to changes?  We have just gone through one of the worst recessions in history and have we learned anything from our experience?  Many would argue that it was short-term thinking that was the major cause of the recession. We spent and spent and bought and bought and borrowed and borrowed like there would be no tomorrows.  A few wiser people tried to warn us about this long-term debt and increased deficit spending, but most of us were too busy "shopping until we dropped" to worry about the future. We were like the grasshopper fiddling while the summer slowly passed by.  Finally, the winter came and you know what happened to the grasshopper. 

We are now in the situation of slowly recovering from this recession.  Many are still unemployed. Many are still homeless or in foreclosure.  Many are still in debt up to their eyeballs.  But we are still asked and perhaps willing to build billion dollar stadiums for the pleasure of watching our favorite sports teams on Saturday and Sunday.  Sports seems to have become the "Opiate of the Masses."  No times or recession can be too bleak as long as the NFL is still playing on Sunday.  We can wait until November to find a new savior who will pull us once and for all out of this recession and restore us to our rightful place as the most powerful and prosperous nation on the face of the earth and indeed in the history of mankind.  Our new savior needs to do this with little or no effort on our part and certainly not ask us to save more or put off until tomorrow what we want to buy today.  Its not our fault if the country was in recession, it is the fault of the politicians who mismanaged the economy.  How dare they ask us to spend less and save more. Why is it taking Obama so long to fix things?  

Do you think long-term or are you primarily always reacting to short-term crisis?  Do you plan for the future or are you focused simply on what problems and troubles today will bring?  What role does long-term thinking play in your life?  

Is it too late?

We have all hear the phrase or said “I wish I could turn back the hands of time.” Have you ever thought how this could be done with a digital clock?  We no longer can turn back hands.  We now must press buttons.  Thus, progress and time marches on and on and on.  However, what if we could get progress to march backwards? What if we could turn back the hands of time?  Imagine all the events that it would be possible to alter.  Would we be smart enough to prevent disasters?  For instance, what if we could go back to the beginning of WW II?  Would we be able to find a way to stop Hitler and the Holocaust?  What if we could go back to the assassination of Julius Caesar?  Could we grab him by the toga and warn him that his best friend was going to kill him?  Do you think he would believe you?  If there were a way to turn the clock back, who would have the power to do so?  Can you imagine everyone running back into history to change things?  Who would decide what to change?

But let us imagine just for today, that you had the power to turn your own clock back.  Just for today, imagine if you could change your history. What time would you turn it back to?  Where would you turn it back to?  Then what would you do?  What would you use your power to change or do differently?  Would you try to save the world or simply undo some stupid things that you personally did?   

Sadly, we all seem to forget that while we can not take back any actions or words that hurt others in the past, we can make amends for them today. What if you made a list of things that you would like to change in the past and started today to make amends for those things?  Could you pick one thing you would like to make amends for each week and work on it?  How would you feel?  How would this change your life?  You really do control your own destiny and perhaps can turn back the hands or as least digits of time.  It is never too late to change things if you start today. 

Lets take some time for a book today!

Book time is my favorite time.  This is when I am already past the “startup” of a new novel and I find the time to just sit down and relax with it. I often go into an old bedroom in our house as it somehow seems more peaceful.   Book time might be just before going to bed or sometimes when I have nothing to do.  The world never seems more peaceful.  It feels like hiding in a cave. When I was a child, book time was when I would go to the library. I discovered libraries at an early age and it was like discovering paradise.

We have one of the nicest libraries in the world in Frederic.  The library head is named Chris and some of the librarians are Lori, Paul and Marlene.  They are all very helpful and customer service is never wanted for at the library. Each day they make pots of coffee for the patrons and they never forget to refill the pots.  Once or twice per week someone brings cookies or pastries to share. There are nice areas for just discussion or reading and they have children hours once per week.  On any given day, I can find Brian or Jerry or Ken there and have an interesting discussion about something going on in the world. There are book clubs and many other activities sponsored by the Frederic library.  Recently they bought a bunch of Kindles and you can check these out.  There are several classes that they offer for patrons on using the new technology and the little library in Frederic is truly a Cyber Library.    

The best thing about libraries though are that they are peaceful and quiet and full of all the ideas, fantasies, mysteries and great things of the world. I fell in love with books there. I probably love books more than anything in the world.  I love them not only because of what they represent, but because of where they can take you and what they can make you. When I was young, I was taught that knowledge was power and information was a precious resource. The balance of power has shifted now due to modern technology and the internet.  Perhaps today it is more important who you know than what you know. Nevertheless, I persist in my love of books, and knowledge and theory and ideas.  I am bothered however by one major shift in our culture.

We seem to live in a society that is more and more obsessed by sports.  It is a society where star athletes are heroes and computer geeks are nerds.  It is a society that places more value on baseball, football and basketball than on books and reading.  Perhaps foolishly, I dream of a society where towns have signs up for leading academic students , leading music majors, leading drama classes, leading art students and not just for the “Football champions of 03” or the “ Class AAA Baseball Champions of 2011.” I dream of a society where drama coaches, music coaches and art teachers are as highly paid as NCAA athletic coaches. I dream of a society where as many students show up to watch the debating matches and chess matches as show up for the basketball games.  I dream of a society where there is no such thing as nerds and geeks and where developing brain power is as sexy as developing muscle power.  

Do you read enough?  Do you value ideas as much as you value “who won the Super bowl?”  Would you pay as much for a beautiful work of art or a ticket to the symphony as you would for a ticket to an NBA playoff game or a Super bowl game?  Do you spend as much time reading as you do watching sports?  Do you concern yourself with politics and culture as much as you do with popular NASCAR and Hollywood celebrities?  Do your children?  Why not?  Do you think your life might be different if you valued ideas more? What might change? 

No time for sex on the beach!

Went down to have a coffee at the library yesterday and read the daily paper.  You can’t beat the prices since both are free.  On the first page of the local section of the news, I noticed the following headline:  “Nude beach is no party for the DNR:  Arrests for drugs, lewd activity up; woods in surrounding area close.”  Reading further, I was shocked and appalled to find that couples at this beach in Wisconsin were actually taking their clothes off and then going into the woods to have “OMG, Sex.”  One bystander noted “I don’t know what fun they get out of that.”  The woods just north of Mazomanie, Wisconsin “includes a naturally secluded beach that offers spectacular views of the surrounding forests and bluffs.” Evidently, it strikes some folks as a good place to spend an afternoon.

I could not believe what I reading.  What kind of perverts, what kind of weird obscene people, what kind of misanthropes would have sex in such a place?  I had to see this for myself. I grabbed my Bushnell 4000-500x high resolution binoculars and jumped in my car to drive down to Mazomanie.  I yelled to Karen as I left, “be back in a while, I am going to see some perverts.”  It did not take me long to get there. I pulled up quietly behind a rise overlooking the beach where I hoped I would not be noticed.  I slithered up the hill and slowly raised my head.  I spied one nude couple who were talking to each other. They looked promising. I adjusted my Bushnell 4000-500x high resolution binoculars and waited. Sure enough, after about an hour of talking, the couple lay down and started kissing. I was very disappointed since I had hoped for more.  However, I kept my focus on them and sure enough, a short while later; they both got up and headed for the woods. I could not believe it.  They were going to have sex in the woods.  I adjusted my Bushnell 4000-500x high resolution binoculars to the maximum power.  I was flabbergasted. I was appalled! I was insulted! I was speechless! Due to the nature of this blog, I cannot tell you what they were doing but it was sinful.

Can you imagine!  What if a little child walked by and had some binoculars like mine?  What if an elderly couple was taking a walk in the woods and they came upon this fornicating couple?  What If some stargazers with high power telescopes were looking in the wrong direction and they saw this obscene act.  What could such people be thinking?  Where is their sense of propriety?  What did they think God made beds for?  I rushed back home to tell Karen what I had seen.

“Karen, Karen, I yelled as I arrived home. You would not believe it. They were having sex in the woods and they had no clothes on.”  Karen replied “What’s the big deal; people have sex in the movies all the time and what about those sexy X-rated films you like. They show people having sex without clothes on.  Most of TV is about sex these days as well. Why would anyone get upset about someone having sex?”

“Karen, you don’t understand.  Those are actors and actresses.  This was the real thing.  They were really doing it.”  “Come with me I said, and I will show you.”  Karen said, “I have a better idea, why don’t we jump in bed and you can show me there?”  I did not think she was taking me seriously so I told her later and went on to my computer.   I wanted to look up “pornography” and see if anyone had encountered a similar situation to the problem we are having in Mazomanie, Wisconsin. Perhaps, some other community had the same kind of perverts we have in Wisconsin and have found a solution to the problem. 

As I was surfing the web, I found additional information on the Mazomanie nude beach problem.  The DNR has now closed down portions of the beach flanking the road. It has also recruited wardens to hide in the woods and bluffs to observe the beach.  They have set up high powered telescopes in hopes of “curtailing sex in the woods.”  The DNR spokesperson said that with increased surveillance, they would be able to keep people in full view and hopefully decrease incidences of lewd behavior. Several DNR agents had volunteered for the job.  I thought maybe I should call them and see if they needed more help.  I also have several friends who might be interested.  After all, my Bushnell 4000-500x high powered binoculars are state of the art equipment. I could see perverts almost a mile away with them. 

I was interrupted while sending in an application by Karen who noted that supper was ready and that we could watch TV while eating.  I said well “Should we watch old episodes on Hulu of Desperate Housewives and Sex in the City or new episodes of GCB, Smash, Girls, Apartment 23, or Mad Men?”  Karen said “haven’t you had enough sex for one day, how about we watch some old reruns of the Mousketeers.”  I said "that sounds like a great idea. Annette Funicello was really hot in those days.” 

What does it mean to be a hypocrite?  How come we are obsessed with sex but real sex offends so many of us?  What is unnatural about “sex in the woods?”  Do we secretly want to have wild risqué sex but need to keep up appearances of decorum and sanctimonious eschewal of the real thing?  What could the DNR do to better spend our tax money?  Would you like to buy a pair of high powered 4000-500x Bushnell binoculars cheap?  

Anticipation time can help you to plan your life more effectively!

Anticipation time is that time when we are waiting for something to happen.  It is when we know in advance that something will happen.  Whether it is good or bad, when we are anticipating something, it can seem like forever.  Time can move very slowly when we are in an anticipatory mood. Those of us who like to plan may try to control these events.  I have been accused of being overly controlling.  My excuse is that I am a strategic planner and that is my nature. I plan my vacations two to three years ahead. I love the anticipation.

For instance, Karen (my spouse) and I had decided to go to Peru a few years ago. It was fun for me to visualize what it would be like to climb Machu Picchu and to take the train in Peru. I was anticipating that we would take a small boat ride up the Amazon River. In my mind, everything worked fine.  I anticipated no problems.  Guess what. Everything worked exactly as I visualized and anticipated it would.  I planned my first overseas trip twenty five years ago.  Since the first, Karen and I have gone on 20 trips to 33 different countries. Each trip was planned more than two years in advance.  We post pictures of where we want to go, buy books, get maps, contact people, get local newspapers and get more and more excited as the day draws near.  In many ways, our anticipatory time goes very fast.  There are so many details and so much to work out to make sure that everything goes as we anticipate. And so far, all of our trips have gone exactly as planned and each one has been more fun and interesting than the last.  I am now planning a trip to South Africa for next year.

However, regardless of how much we try to control the time in our lives, there are inevitably events we cannot control.  On Monday morning, your boss says “I want to see you in my office on Friday.”  Your annual performance evaluation, an important presentation or an upcoming court date are just a few of the many different events that will create “anticipatory time” in our lives. Some of these events will not be ones that we would choose.  These will create “negative” anticipatory time.  I call this the time we have to wait that is not fun and that creates stress in our lives.  Positive anticipatory time may also go slow but it is time that is fun to think about and where we are anxious for the time to move fast.  In both cases, we want the time to go by but in one case, it is with positive anticipation and the other with negative anticipation.

What do you like to anticipate in your life? Are you in control over your anticipations or do you just go with the flow? Would more planning help you to have more fun with anticipation?  What can you do to minimize the “negative” anticipation in your life?  Are you leading the type of balanced life that helps to minimize stress and problems?  If not, how can you get more balance in your life?  A balanced life will have less negative and more positive anticipatory time. 

Today is the best day in the entire world history!

This is the best time in the world.  Today is the best day in the world.  There has never been another day that is better than right now. There is no better time than October 2, 2012.  Perhaps it might seem foolish to make such a claim. Perhaps tomorrow it might sound foolish. To some it will always sound foolish.  There are those who might say it is looking at the world with rose colored glasses. Others might attribute it to a foolish optimism.  Very few would see it as a statement of realism.  It will never be possible to prove it as a statement of fact.  Yet, it determines to a large extent what we do with our lives and what we attempt to do in the world. My view of the world today will affect most of the things that happen to me today and of course my attitude tonight whether or not this was a great day. 

A few weeks ago when we were traveling back home, we stopped in Austin to visit my wife's son.  He found a job down there about a year ago and Karen had not seen Kevin in nearly a year.  While Karen was visiting Kevin, we stayed in a nice room with a kitchenette. I went to the local Wal-Mart to pick up some deli items. There was a young man behind the counter and we greeted each other. He sounded very cheerful and I asked him if he was having a nice day.  He replied "I am always having a nice day." I said, oh, you must be feeling healthy and happy when you can make such a statement. He said "No, I don't need to be healthy.  I get up each morning and as long as I am alive, healthy or not, I am going to have a nice day."  I left with my goodies but I could not forget this young man's attitude.  Neither health nor working at a rather low paying job was going to affect his view of life and the world.  I have always declared a nice day as one where I woke up feeling  healthy and he took it a step further as one where he simply work up. 

When you believe that the world feels wonderful, it changes your whole perspective on life.  On the days when I can grasp this thought, there is no other place I want to be. Things are going just right, all is well.  I feel healthy, happy and contented.  I am not unhappy with the right wing or left wing or chaos anywhere in the world.  I can just accept the world for what it is.  It is a wonderful feeling.  I sometimes wish the feeling could last forever.  I think of the quote from Dickens that: “this is the best of all possible worlds.”  Where else could I go? 

 If we look around us, we can see a beautiful place full of beautiful people and extraordinary places and opportunities. Of course, we can see the opposite if we are minded to.  There will always be war, hatred, killing and violence. It is part of human nature.  But are you part of the problem or part of the solution?  If you are not doing your share to end the problems of the world, why complain about them?  Take some time to end violence, to end poverty and to end war.  But for today, try to find only the good out there.  

See if you can find three things that make you happy or three good things that you like about the world.  Try to be aware today of the good things in your life. Write them down and look at them again when you wake up tomorrow. See if you can feel why this is the best of all possible times and today is the best of all possible days.  Tomorrow will be even better.  Can you make the choice?  

Before and After

Before and After!  How many times have you seen these words and the accompanying pictures?  Indeed it is difficult to go to a grocery store without seeing the ubiquitous ads glaring at us from the front of a dozen magazines while we wait at the checkout register.  Young and old, fat and skinny, powerful and weak, six packs versus no packs, hair versus no hair, there is no end to the changes we can make in our lives if we only will adopt their 100 percent proven guaranteed money back easy to apply secrets that cost pennies per week.

Before and After!  After and After!  In just six weeks, with our new diet, program, tapes, books, routine, etc. you too can become a model for our next “Before and After” ad.  You will be slimmer, smarter, stronger, faster, happier and live longer. You will have more friends, a better marriage, children to make your neighbors envy you and a love life that never stops.  Why wait, start now.  It only takes six weeks.  Motivation does not matter. Effort does not matter.  The secret is with our proven methods. 

Does anyone know when they first saw such ads?  I remember seeing them when I joined the Air Force over 45 years ago. I would bet the first ads went back to the time of Moses.  I imagine some enterprising Egyptians were selling the Israelites dreams of what the Promised Land would be like.  “Now you are slaves, but in only six weeks, with our powerful mind control techniques, you can be free like us. For just a few shekels, free yourself from the mind of a slave and enjoy life in the Promised Land. Thousands of other slaves have benefited from our free money back offer of happiness.” 

Recent evidence, which seems to keep repeating itself in study after study, shows that most good things in life take more than six weeks to obtain. In fact, you and I both know that most good things take more than six months and even six years to obtain.  We know this but we become seduced by our dreams for overnight success and instant results.  Dr. Deming used to say that managers wanted instant pudding and that was why there were so many faddish management programs in vogue.  That is why credit cards become so popular.  Why buy on lay away, when you can have it now?  Instant pudding, overnight success, instant gratification, weight loss without hard work, abs of steel with no burn and pain; these delusions blind us to the reality that we know but don’t want to accept. 

There is no overnight success.  There is no gain without hard effort.  Instant dreams of “Before and After” blind us to the reality of life.  The “Law of Effort” is as much a law of life as any physical laws that exist. You do not get something without giving something. The more you get, the more you must give. The more you want to change, the more changes you must make. The more weight you want to lose, the more calories you must expend.

“But why wait, with our new formula, you can burn calories while you sleep and wake up looking like a super model or a super hero.”

Could it be possible?  Hope springs eternal in the human breast. However, hope must be tempered by some firm realities. To repeat, you cannot get something for nothing in this world.  Money does not buy anything but a new coach or trainer.  YOU must still be the one to put up the effort.  This is a message that if everyone really understood and accepted would erase all of those seductive magazine ads that portray a false picture of reality.  These ads are dangerous because they promote unrealistic dreams of life.  

Most people last anywhere from six weeks to six months on any given program and then they give up.  Ask anyone at your local gym if you don’t believe me.  Conditioned to think that they only need to work six weeks or to find the right program, most people do not start out with the right attitude.  They subscribe to the wrong set of premises; a set of premises that doom most people to failure.  But would anyone buy a program that said “It will take you anywhere from six months to six years to fully realize the benefits of this program and you will have to work hard at it five or six days per week.  In fact, you may have to work at it the rest of your entire life.”  And by the way, “You will never look like Jessica Alba or Brad Pitt.” 

You say no.  People would never change if they realized the true effort that would be involved, but I say we need to tell the truth.  If there were not so much money in these phoney commercials, there would be less lies.  I think perhaps there would be more people who would give up their day dreams of overnight success.  I am not saying there would not be dreams but they should be dreams that have a real chance of success. Dreams based on faulty premises such as overnight success only doom the bearer to failure. I want more people to be smarter, happier, slimmer, stronger and to live longer. I believe it is possible if our dreams are based on a realistic plan of success and not some fairy tale dreamed up by some greedy Wall Street marketer. 

Do you have dreams of before and after?  Are your dreams followed by the effort you need to make them a reality? Can you dream and still be realistic in the work you need to make your dreams come true?  Maybe you do not dream enough or maybe you do not put enough effort into making your dreams a reality, which is it for you? 

Can you run your time away?

Run time!  No, this is not the run time for my computer.  This is my personal running time.  I have been running regularly for 35 years.  On the average, I run about 5 times a week and about 3 to 4 miles each run.  I am still waiting for the runners “high” where I can feel nothing but blissful peace. I really enjoy running but through the years, there have been numerous pains and hurts to overcome.  It seems to get harder running in the winter.  I suppose running is a great deal like life, it has its ups and downs and it only gets better when we keep working at it.  There are no magical highs (except for temporary ones on drugs) but in general, the pleasure I get from running out weighs the pain.  

I no longer try to increase my running speed or my distances. I will not be an Olympic marathoner nor am I training for my 101^st marathon. I like to say I am a “maintenance” runner.  That means my schedule is set up to maintain my present level of fitness.  For my age, I am in reasonably good health.  I am five foot eight inches tall and I weigh about 150 lbs.  I feel good and have not been to surgery or to the doctor for anything serious yet in my life. I pray it will remain the same for the next ten years.  I suppose like many people I avoid going to the doctor unless I have to.  I will have my first physical next Wednesday in five years. Karen said she was remiss in letting me skate for so long.  

What does running have to do with time?  I find that by doing “maintenance” running, I notice my running times go in cycles with the seasons.  I run more in the late summer and fall and less in the winter and spring. At first I was worried at these dips in my “maintenance” schedule.  Then, I read that it is natural to go with a cycle and that it lets my body recover.  Just like winter allows the earth to recover before it starts to bud out in spring and emerge more glorious in summer.  As each year progresses, I find that I am running farther and farther and enjoying it more and more. As winter sets in again, I slow down and with the shorter days, my runs become shorter and shorter.  Spring is when I start feeling like increasing my runs and distance.  My body and running seem to respond to the same cycles as the earth. 

Have you ever found a cycle to your life? What activities or efforts in your life seem cyclical?  Do you fight your cycles or do you allow yourself to “go with the flow.”  How have cycles made a difference in your life? Would better managing your natural cycles improve your life?  

Does Love last forever?

Call me Cynic!  I am sorry but I am not a believer in everlasting love.  When I go to weddings and see the “happily” married couples with stars in their eyes and passion in their hearts, I wonder how long it will be until the divorce.  What many people regard as love is little more than infatuation and naiveté.  We begin our romance with delusions of how wonderful this person makes us feel, how much we enjoy being with them, endless nights of passion and a lifetime of love without strings attached.  Somewhere along the way for all too many couples today, this fantasy of love changes.  Our blemish free partner suddenly develops warts, demands start increasing, passionate nights of love making become less and less frequent.  At some point, we begin to have doubts as to what we really saw in this person.  Did we really make the right choice?  What were we thinking? 

Well, you are probably thinking about what a miserable person I am right now. How can I say these things about love and marriage?  Perhaps all my relationships have been terrible but yours certainly would not be.  What world is he living in?  I suppose  I could point to my present 23 year marriage to Karen as some evidence of my experience in this matter but you could simply say “Yes, but it sounds like you are pretty unhappy.” Actually, that is not the case.  I have never been happier or more in love with Karen then I am now.  We started dating in 1983, married in 1989 and will have our 24th wedding anniversary in September.  I submit some people stay married simply because of duty or loyalty but that is not my case.  To be perfectly honest, I do believe in the possibility of living “happily ever after.”  Call me Idealist!   This is not the same as everlasting love. 

Next weekend, I will attend my former employer Lou Schultz, who is now my good friend and his wife Kay’s 50 anniversary.  I could not be happier for Lou and Kay. Throughout all the years I have known Lou, he has worked hard for whatever he has obtained.  Nothing was simply given to Lou nor would he expect the world to simply take care of him.  Lou served in the Marine Corp with honor and subsequently built a very successful career with Control Data.  Not content to simply pick up a paycheck and put his time in, Lou struck out on his own in the early 80’s and took the risk of starting his own company.  Lou and Kay put up a great deal of their savings to start PMI.  During the 80’s and early 90’s, PMI was one of the most successful quality consulting firms in the industry.  Kay continued to work to help support the effort and Lou put in many 60-80 hour work weeks.  The same hard work and dedication that Lou put into the company, Lou put into his marriage.  Thus, next week they will celebrate their fiftieth anniversary. Call me Realist!

At PMI, I learned from Lou and others, that most of life is a process.  There are ups and downs, ins and outs and normal variation in day to day levels of quality and satisfaction.  I submit that true love is really like that.  It is a process. You must feed and nurture it. You must work at it and you must expect ups and downs.  Some days, you will feel more loved and closer than ever before. If you continually work on your process, you will find the ups and downs become less severe and you will find your overall “quality” levels increasing in a steady upward trend. Meaning you will begin to have more and more a deepening sense of love for your partner. In team building, we describe the process of team development as going through four stages. The first stage is Forming when the group begins and selects it rules and leaders.  The second stage is Storming when the group starts challenging the rules and power struggles break out.  The third state is Norming when standards and expectations begin to be understood and the group begins to really work together. The fourth and final stage is Performing when the team is really working on task and accomplishing its objectives in a unified and cohesive manner.  It has finally become a real team. 

I believe love may go through similar stages for many of us.  At least for those of us who are willing to stick it out past the Storming stage instead of heading off to Divorce Court.  However, unlike a team which is only formed for a short period of time, our marriage or our relationships are “teams” that we want to form for life.  The implication or consequence of this decision is that: Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing may become part of our overall cycle of process improvement.  Love grows as a result of sticking to this process and continuing to build trust and loyalty with our partner.  It is all too easy to give up on them and to look for someone else who better meets our expectations.  Keep in mind that these expectations are most likely the same ones that your former lover once filled. However, since you have never understood the idea of Love as a Process, your desire is to simply fulfill that fantasy of love which still exists in your mind.  You go out again hoping to find Mr. or Ms. Right. This is the only person in the world who can satisfy your dreams and hopes of everlasting and effortless free love.  What you are really in love with is yourself and you are looking for a mirror to reflect that love back to you. This might happen for a short time but eventually and inevitably, your dream partner begins to have dreams of their own.  The “Mirror Mirror on the Wall” will someday tell you that you are not the “The fairest of them all.”  And thus the cycle of disillusionment starts again. 

Are you in love today or in passion?  Are you a cynic, an idealist or a realist about love?  Do you work at your relationships or do they just happen?  What could you do to apply the ideas of Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing to your relationships?  What do you think it would take to put more love in your life?  

What is the true value of time?

Polls show Americans like instant gratification. A recent AP Poll showed that Americans are an impatient bunch. We get antsy after a few minutes on hold; we hate to wait in grocery stores or in airports.  Older people are more impatient than younger people.  People in the country are just a little more patient than city people but not by much.  This poll was based on 1003 adults.  Most people answered they felt more time poor than money poor.  Benjamin Franklin said that time was money and many of us take this truth to heart.

The findings from this AP Poll will probably not surprise anyone but it is significant in that today we are beginning to value time more than money.  Economic theory or the Law of supply and Demand says that the scarcer something is the more valuable it will be.  If we now have less time than money, then time will become proportionally more valuable to us.  People who can afford SUV BMW's and other such luxuries may have a surplus of money but there are only 24 hours in a day.  I have often noted that time and money are like matter and energy, they are interchangeable.  The more money you have, the more time you have because you can pay people to do things that you don't want to do. If you have time and no money, you can just do them yourself.  Of course, that oversimplifies the relationship between time and money, since you have to spend time to get money.  

Another comparison of time to matter and energy is that no matter who you are or how much money you have, the time you have is fixed.  Just like matter and energy are fixed, so is the amount of time in any given day and perhaps in any given life.  No matter how rich you are, you cannot buy another minute in a day or another second in your life. You may work overtime to acquire more toys or to display a luxury lifestyle image but rich or poor you share the same amount of time each day as everyone else. Time will become more and more precious while the things in your life will soon lose their luster.  Bling only blings so long and then goes out of style.  A short life does not always equate to a cosmic sense of justice and perhaps the length of our lives is more random that we would like to believe.  The good do not always die young but neither do the bad.  

What is the true value of your time?  What if you wanted less? What if you spent less time shopping and buying and acquiring things?  Would you be happier with less things and more time?  How does buying and spending keep you from enjoying your time and relaxing more?  How does owning so many toys affect your life?  What if you adopted the virtue of frugality?  Would you trade your things for more time to spend with those you love?  Would your life be happier if it were simpler? 

Don't waste my time please!

Don’t waste my time. One of the greatest sins of modern society is to waste time. It is even worse to waste someone else’s time.  Unfortunately, there are numerous ways that you can waste time.  Pace Productivity conducted surveys among 690 employees and entrepreneurs across North America. The first question they asked was designed to find out which factors impeded respondents' productivity that were outside of their control. The following were the top ten time wasters that respondents felt they had no control over.

Paperwork / administrative tasks Customer requests: service / problems / complaints Phone calls / phone interruptions / inquiries Computer / system / equipment problems No internal support / other departments' inefficiency Unspecified interruptions Traffic / travel Meetings - too many / too long / unnecessary Volume of work / not enough time Staffing issues / people absent

135 115 101 86 58 45 43 38 38 36

This is a very interesting list. No doubt there are many aspects of time that we cannot control.  However, the first question I have when looking at this list is the validity of the respondents’ assumption that they have “no control” over these time wasters.  I admit that in several of these areas, it is difficult to have control, but the operational word is difficult.  I would stop at the word impossible. I lean towards looking at what I can do to have more control over my life and I refuse to abdicate control in many of these so called time waster areas.  I might only have partial control but once I assert this control, I can minimize the impact of the time wasted. 

Do you see some areas above that you also feel you could take some control over?  What are the biggest time wasters in your life?  Do you think they are all out of your control or do you think you have some control over them?  Pick one large time waster in your life.  What could you do today that would help you to gain control and minimize this time waster in your life?  

How much time do we spend on our children?

Children Time! The experts all say that the best thing to spend on your children is your time. Nevertheless, toys have become a substitute for time spent with children today.  How much money is spent on children’s toys each year?  How many parents do you see who try to buy their kid’s affections with toys?  Children are inundated with toys, video games, I-Pods, and countless other throw-away items. We bury our kids with an avalanche of toys and mindless distractions. The toys and the interest in the toys do not seem to last as long as the batteries.  Once upon a time, children if they were good got a special toy at Christmas or on their birthday.  Today, every day is toy day for kids.  I have seen friends who have children with so many toys you can barely walk through their houses.  Many motorcycle clubs have a ride each year called “Toys for Tots” to buy toys for any children who do not have enough. However, the real problem is too many toys for children. Too many toys and not enough time with our children!

Have you noticed that kids seem more angry (witness the increasing school violence) today.  They are certainly getting fatter (due in some small part to all the toys they have that prevent them from getting real exercise).  I see young kids riding down the street on motorized skate boards and motorized scooters instead of pedaling or pushing a regular skate board.  They are inevitably overweight or obese.  Computer sports games and other on-line competitive games have replaced real sports for many kids.  Of course, there are those kids whose parents are grooming them for the NFL or NBA or NHL and these poor kids get to go to so many sports events they lose track.  Followed by the inevitable coach parent, they will probably learn to hate sports as something that is a duty rather than something you can do for fun.  I wonder how many of these sport-aholic parents and children will appreciate exercise for exercise sake or will really enjoy the parent child time spent together?  How many of these would be Pro-Stars will still be in good shape when they are in their thirties or say fifties?

Regardless of how much we give our children or how many sporting events we make our children attend, the thing they will remember the most and that will have the most impact on their lives will be the quality of the time we spend with them.  Quality time is time spend interacting with our children. This does not mean watching TV with them or even going to their soccer games and baseball games. It is time spent relating to them and sharing parent wisdom, guidance and experience with them.  It is time spent camping with your children, roller skating, ice skating, skiing or playing tennis with them.  It is time spent reading a story to or with them. It is time spent helping them with their homework or doing chores around the house with them. It is time spent during the entire cycle of your children’s lives from infant to old-age.  Parent child time will change as they grow older but it does not diminish in terms of the quality of the interaction that is important. 

How much time do you spend doing things with your children, with your grandchildren?  Do you read to your children, play games with them, take walks with them?  How much quality time do your spend with your children versus just “busy” time?  What could you do to increase the quality of the time you spend with your children and with your family? Would this improve your life or their lives or both? 

The importance of family time in my life!

Family time is one of the most important times in our lives. It is the time we set aside for our children and our spouse. Sometimes it seems hard to “find” this time, but unless we make the effort, we grow old without really creating those essential bonds for a family.  When my daughter was young, I tried to have a fixed time each week to do something together with her. As she got older and had more friends it became more difficult to find the time each week.  Nevertheless, no matter how much we say we love someone, there is nothing like being there for them. 

The need to be there never ends.  One morning Karen got up at 4:30 AM to travel 30 miles to take her oldest daughter to the hospital for surgery. Julie, (Karen’s Oldest) was having a hysterectomy and Karen wanted to be there with her at the hospital. Karen asked her boss for the day off so she could drive Julie to the hospital and spend the day with her.  It would have been very easy for Karen to find an excuse: “It is really far to drive;” “I don’t have much vacation time left;” “There will be plenty of support at the hospital;”
“I will only spend most of my day sitting around.” Actually, all of these thoughts went through my head when Karen told me what she planned to do.  However, to Karen, this was a form of family time and it was the most important time in the world that she could spend with her daughter. 

In my second marriage, Karen and I fixed times to do something together as a family and to do something with just each other.  I am not always good at keeping this family time and it is not always “quality” time but as I look back, I would never give up these times. If there were one most important “time” in my relationship with Karen, it is this “family time.”  I think Karen and I have grown closer together and become more loving and intimate as time has gone by. Our family time and family meetings are still weekly events which we adhere to.  Sometimes they end up in disagreements or the discussion of unpleasant issues. The alternative is to ignore problems and just let them build up.  I have found that it is never one big issue that destroys a relationship.  It is the pile up of straws that as the proverb goes eventually “breaks the camels back.” Family time for me is not only time together, it is problem-solving time to improve our relationship.

Do you have a family time? Do you have a set time each week to spend together for fun and for discussion?  If so, do you find this time valuable?  If not, what would it take to create this time?  What would it take to improve the quality of your time together with your family?  Will you regret that you did not take this time in the years to come?  Can you start this week with more family time?  

What is Prime TIme for you?

We are all familiar with the concept of “Prime time.”  According to Wikipedia, Prime

Time is defined as “the block of time with the most viewers and is generally where television networks and local stations reap much of their advertising revenues.”  Thus for some, Prime Time is where the most money can be made.  

However, what if we thought of Prime Time as a kind of Angus Beef time, in other words the choicest time of the day or our lives?  Just like there are different cuts of beef denoting the value of the beef, we could have different cuts of time such as: Standard time, Choice Time, Select Time and Prime Time.  Choice Time would be a lower grade of time.  Work time and time spent on activities that were necessary might be Choice Time.  Select Time would be time that we can select to do what we want with.  Select Time can be play time or relaxation time or time which we just spend in front of the TV. Prime Time is the most special time of the day. It is the premium time we spend.  It is the time that is richest in flavor and value. It is the time that you would least want to give up. 

My Prime Time is the time I spend with my spouse when we both come home from work. It is the time that I spend with my grandchildren and the time I spend with my best friends.  I am never sure whether my other times will be fun or worthwhile.  The time I spend with my loved ones transcends being fun or worthwhile.  It is a prime part of my life. 

What is the Prime Time of your life?  Do you regard Prime Time as ongoing, or do you feel you have already “tasted” it?  Can you enjoy Prime Time every day of the week or do you just have a few days of Prime Time each week?  Do you have enough Prime Time in your life?  What can you do to have more Prime Time in your life?  

Brother, can you spare some time?

I have some “left-over” time today.  Like left-over food, if I don’t use it, it will probably spoil. You cannot save left-over time too long, since something will inevitably come up to take it away from you. We get left-over time when we finish something sooner than we thought we would.  I may budget four hours for a project but instead it only takes three. I now have 1 hour left-over. If I don’t save this time, I will surely be able to use it up right away.  Left-overs are one of life’s many blessings to us.  Do you know anybody that does not like left-overs?  It is so much fun to go back down to the refrigerator after all the company has left and find left-over turkey or chicken or a roast to pick on. 

Left-over time can be equally wonderful. We all love to have time left to spend on something that we did not plan or did not anticipate.  It is all too rare these days to find ourselves with left-over time.  Of course, if you get to the airport and find out that your plane was delayed, you might be at a loss as to what to do with your time.  At this point, there is no refrigerator to store your left-over time in.  Many people plan for such delays and creatively find uses for left-over time. Much like some good cooks can make more interesting second meals out of left-overs, some people find very novel ways to spend their left-over time. Take a trip to an airport sometime and look at all the ways that people spend their left-over time.

Left-over food always seems to taste better when you eat it then when it was cooked.  Do you think “left-over time” gets better when you can put it away and bring it out later to use?  Does time age well or does it go stale very quickly?  How long can you keep left-over time? When do you ever have “left-overs” for time?  If you finish something today in less time than you had anticipated, what will you do with your left-over time today?  Are you creative with your left-over time?  Maybe we all need to start finding a better way to have “left-overs” for time and more creative ways to spend it?   

The older I get, the less I know?

The older I get, the less I know.  Isn’t it supposed to work the other way around?  A friend of mine, Jerry, gave me this quote from Bertrand Russell the other day:  The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.”  The Greek philosopher Socrates was once proclaimed to the wisest man in the world. The day before he died, Socrates declared that he knew nothing. On that same day, the Oracle at Delphi was asked “Who is the wisest man in the world?”  She replied “Socrates is the wisest man in the world.”  This was reported back to Socrates who said “When I was young, I knew everything but now I know nothing.” The Oracle, who was never wrong, was asked “How can Socrates be the wisest man in the world when he knows nothing?” She replied “Only the wisest man in the world would know that he knows nothing and have the courage and humility to admit it.” 

So we go to school to learn many facts and figures.  We study history to learn the story of humanity, we study physics to learn the theory of the cosmos, we study biology to learn how animals grow and develop and we study science so we will know how the world really works.  We learn more and more and are deluded into theories and opinions and positions. We become more and more certain that we are wiser and smarter. The more degrees that are conferred on us, the smarter we are supposed to be.  In reality, we begin to suspect that all of these facts and data bits are not really helping us to become smarter or wiser.  The older most of us get and the more learned most of us become, the more we suspect that there are no truths to the world.  We begin to see that there are always more truths behind the truths that we think we have found.  Our profundities become curiosities as we get older until at some point they wither away and become obsolete.  How many theories have you seen that were proven wrong?  How many times have you had to eat humble pie because something you were absolutely positively sure about was proven conclusively wrong? 

I remember seeing a picture in the paper the other day of a man accused of sexually molesting a young girl.  He was accused of pedophilia and charged with a felony offense.  I took one look at the visage staring out of the paper at me and promptly proclaimed “If there were ever a guy who was a pedophile, he sure is.”  A few weeks later, a more complete investigation proved him completely innocent of all offenses and the young girl admitted that she made the story up for some unknown reason.  I was beyond having egg on my face.  You would think that at my age, I would have learned to avoid rush to judgments.  I can make no excuses for my blatant stupidity. 

For the last few weeks, the media circus has been focusing on the Trayvon Martin case. It seems every day we are confronted with some new facts that support a change in who the media wants us to think is guilty.  Trayvon initiated the encounter. Zimmerman initiated the encounter, Trayvon provoked Zimmerman.  Zimmerman stalked Trayvon. Trayvon was a good kid.  Zimmerman was loved by all of his friends.  Trayvon was a racist.  Zimmerman was a racist.  Tapes, witnesses, photo enlargements, medical information, acoustic information, video tapes, the entire gamut is presented daily with one expert after another telling us what they think.  Each day it appears we know more and more about less and less.  What are we doing here folks?  Are we indicting racism? Are we selling papers?  Are we voyeurs to some weird witch hunt?  Are we looking for the truth?  Are we taking sides so we can become right? 

Trayvon s death is tragic. It is a loss to his family and friends and society.  I have never been “stalked” to the extent that many Black people are but I have had many friends who have told me about situations wherein they were stalked or profiled because they were Black.  It is always embarrassing for me to hear these stories.  I wish we lived in a nation where this could never happen, but I don’t and it does.  Somehow though, I think Trayvon’s death could be a catalyst to help change some of this outright racism. I keep thinking and hoping that this young man’s life and death will not be in vain.  If we can somehow get pass this media circus and any calls for revenge, there are lessons here that we need to learn.  If you remember the famous story Rashomon, you may be more liable to realize that we may never have any truth to what really happened between Trayvon and Zimmerman.  However, the lack of truth and certainty does not mean that there are not lessons to be learned here. 

I think many of you are also appalled by this show that seems to be playing out in the papers and television.  I can only hope this is not the forerunner of more cases being played out in the media. If so, we will truly have become a Roman Circus instead of a civilized society of laws and courts and presumptions of innocence until proven guilty. 

What can you help do to overcome the types of bias and prejudice that the media often promotes?  How can you avoid your own “rush to judgment?”  What does it mean to “judge not others, less you be judged yourself.”  How often do we see the mote in others eyes but ignore the pole in our own?  What lessons can we learn from Trayvon’s death so that it is not meaningless?  

The Start of April

Yes I know it is April 2nd and not April fools day but did you ever think about what an interesting way to begin a month.  Imagine beginning a month on a joke?  Did you ever wonder where this tradition came from? Why is it okay to “fool” people on this particular day of the year?  Did you know that although many countries in the world share this tradition, the origin of it is still quite disputable.  Some say it began as a means of fooling people as to the beginning of the real year while others see it as connected to the crucifixion of Jesus.  Nevertheless, it is a time of hoaxes and trickery.  You can amuse yourself by going to the site called "April Fools Zone” and see what cool pranks you could have played on your friends. 

Of course, many of us are perhaps more concerned about our taxes then “fooling” around.  For some, April is when the IRS must be paid.  If you are like I am, you start trying to itemize all of your receipts and keep your fingers crossed that you will not owe the government any money.  Karen and I like to think of our “tax refund” as a kind of a down payment on our vacation for the upcoming year.  No refund, no vacation. 

April also means showers and flowers.  As I run along the trails I can find many wildflowers blooming now. Yesterday I found something called an Anemone Americana, see above picture.  They were all over the trails and very interesting. Karen picked one for me to identify and I found it on a website in about 2 minutes. Amazing the power of the web to help us find anything these days.  I also came home with a total of eight ticks to Karen's two ticks..  Despite checking before we left the trail, I found four inside my shirt when I came home and another two inside my pants.  Are they getting smarter and sneakier or did my six months in Arizona allow me to forget how to spot them? We finally just tossed all of our clothes in a pile and put them in the washing machine.  

What does the month of April mean for you?  Are you a trickster or do you habitually get fooled? Have you ever played an April fools joke on someone?  Are you done with your taxes yet or do you wait until the last minute?  Do you think you will get a refund?  What will you do with it when it comes?