It has long been written you should never buy a car built on either a Monday or a Friday. The logic is on Monday, too many workers are recovering from the weekend to do their best work and on Friday, too many are slacking off in anticipation of the weekend. Quality surveys at the time tended to bear this out. Popular knowledge said that cars produced on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday had the least problems and lasted longest..
In our culture that Wednesday is widely referred to as "hump day". On hump day the work-week is precariously balanced -- half done, and half to be completed.
On Wednesday afternoon, we are free to release some of the pressure to perform that drives our early efforts and begin what many refer to as "that long pleasant slide into the weekend". By quitting time Friday, when we finally shut down, our minds have already been out the front door for half a day.
Such an attitude assumes that we work five days a week so that we can truly live the other two. As a result, we coast through the week and through life doing less than our best, wondering why we fail to excel. We also end up enduring rather than living a large fraction of our existence.
Rather than looking at Wednesday as the beginning of a long slide into the weekend, why not look on it as the beginning of a final sprint to the finish line? Runners in competition know the value of the final sprint or "kick" at the end of the race. Depending on the competition, the strength and duration of one's kick may mean the difference between a medal and finishing in the middle of the pack.
Starting well is important, but one can make up for a less than optimal start.
Continuing strong is important. It keeps one in contention for the finish.
But a good kick, a strong final sprint at the finish is required to become a champion.
And, a strong kick is a matter of attitude.
So, how are you spending your life?
Are you well into that long slide to whatever comes next or are you sprinting to attain the prize?
The choice is yours.
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Friday, July 20, 2012
High Riding Heroes
My heroes have always been cowboys,
And they still are, it seems.
Sadly in search of and one step in back of
Themselves, and their slow movin' dreams.
-- as sung by Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson
I grew up in the 1950s during the decline of radio and the rise of television as the family home entertainment medium of choice. Consequently, I developed an appreciation for the offerings of both media.
As she worked during the afternoons, my mom would listen to soap operas such as our "Our Gal Sunday" (Can a girl from a simple mining town in the west find happiness with one of England's most titled Lords?), The Romance of Helen Trent (proving that romance can begin at thirty-five.), and others.
Shortly after four PM, the programming changed and soap operas gave way to programs designed to entertain the kids when they got home from school before the family sat down to supper. Sponsorship changed from soap, detergent, and home products to breakfast cereals. The theme of the shows shifted from modern romance to tales of high adventure and great good deeds. Lead characters were no longer women seeking happiness and romance but strong men striving to carve out and civilize a place in the American West.
When I got home from school, after the chores were done, I would sit and soak up the adventures of Wild Bill Hickock and his sidekick Jingles P. Jones, of Sky King, the Arizona rancher who flew an airplane while maintaining law and order on his large Arizona ranch. I would eagerly follow the adventures of Straight Arrow, the crime-fighting alter ego of rancher Steve Adams, and, moving north, of Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, sworn to bring in the lawless and maintain the right.
After supper and the news with Lowell Thomas, the entire family would listen to the adventures of The Cisco Kid and his sidekick Pancho, followed by The Lone Ranger.
Much of my character and many of my values were imparted to me by these mostly fictional heroes. They lived in a world that never existed and did great deeds that never took place in history. Yet, from them I learned values that remain eternally real.
I learned to be truthful. The bad guy was usually a liar.
I learned to be honest. The bad guy usually cheated at cards and sometimes got shot because of it.
I learned to be honorable. The good guy always carried through on his commitments, even when he was alone, and no matter what it cost him.
I learned to be loyal. The good guy always stood with and never deserted his friends.
I learned to be courteous, to answer when spoken to, to listen without butting in and to treat others as I would want to be treated.
And I learned to be kind. The good guy never mistreated his animals or those who couldn't defend themselves.
And I learned that life itself is an adventure that will find you if you let it.
Fictionalized heroes in fictional situations living real values: who would have thought it?
To whom or what do you attribute your values, your character?
How's that working for you?
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Simpler Times?
Shortly after ten PM on Friday evening, 29 June 2012, 80 mile per hour winds of the June 2012 Derecho knocked out electrical power in our community and those around us. We awoke on Saturday morning to a world decidedly different than the one we had awakened to a scant 24 hours before.
There would be no fresh brewed coffee; the coffee maker requires electricity. Neither would there be any fresh perked coffee since the stove is also electric. Unless I chose to drag out the camp stove, there would there be no bacon, eggs, or even oatmeal due to lack of a heat source. Thank goodness city water and sewer allowed the water to continue to run and the toilets to continue to flush.
Land line phones were out and cellular service spotty due to storm damage. Wireless phones require electricity even even when attached to the land line. Internet service via the iPad was so slow and unreliable that I shut it down to save battery.
In short, our thoroughly modern community five miles from Washington Dulles Airport and thirty miles outside our nation's capital was forced to cope with the limitations of what our nineteenth and early twentieth-century ancestors would have called every day life. Without power, our options were limited.
The community in which I grew up had been electrified less than fifteen years when I was born. During my boyhood, we had neighbors who lived without electricity, mostly for fear of fire and electrocution. Somehow, they never quite made the connection between coal oil lamps and fire hazards. Oil lamps were a familiar hazard. Electricity was a great unknown and prone to fail during summer and winter storms.
My grandmother cooked on a wood stove four seasons of the year. So did my mother until 1953 when Dad bought her a stove that used liquid propane as its fuel. He chose gas because electric power was unreliable and cooking and eating were important even when the power was out.
At my Grand Dad's house, water was pumped by hand and carried to the kitchen in a bucket. A good friend's family dipped their water from a nearby spring. Our electric pump provided cold water to the kitchen as long as the power was on; during power outages, we hauled water pumped from my grand parents' well in ten gallon milk cans.
Water for washing was heated on the kitchen stove summer and winter. There was no shower; the bathtub was made by Wheeling Steel, hung on a nail on the back porch and was dragged in at bath time. We learned early how to take a sponge bath.
There was no bathroom. The "necessary facility" was an outhouse which required a walk, or else a chamber pot that had to be emptied daily. People back then dealt with a lot of mess and smells with which people today are entirely unfamiliar.
There was no central heat and no air conditioning, but houses were designed with windows to take advantage of whatever cooling breezes there were. When it was hot, we slowed down, drank lots of water, and stayed in the shade as much as possible. When it was cold, we put on extra layers, piled extra quilts on the bed, and built the fire a bit hotter in the stove.
Some would say that times were simpler back then. And, when viewed through one lens, they were. But that simplicity required more knowledge, more skills, and more labor than we are used to expending today. In those times, these now antiquated skills were a normal part of life, necessary for comfort and survival, learned and practiced almost from the time one could walk.
Today, we learn, practice, and rely on different skills for our comfort and survival. Today, our twenty-first century houses and facilities are ill designed or equipped to support a nineteenth century lifestyle for more than a short time. Yet, when the power goes out, we are returned to the capabilities of the nineteenth century and must make do with that which is.
When the power goes out, I wonder how well my life skills match up to those of my grand parents and great grand parents.
How well do yours?
How would you make do and survive an extended period without power?
What would you have to do differently in order to thrive in such an environment?
There would be no fresh brewed coffee; the coffee maker requires electricity. Neither would there be any fresh perked coffee since the stove is also electric. Unless I chose to drag out the camp stove, there would there be no bacon, eggs, or even oatmeal due to lack of a heat source. Thank goodness city water and sewer allowed the water to continue to run and the toilets to continue to flush.
Land line phones were out and cellular service spotty due to storm damage. Wireless phones require electricity even even when attached to the land line. Internet service via the iPad was so slow and unreliable that I shut it down to save battery.
In short, our thoroughly modern community five miles from Washington Dulles Airport and thirty miles outside our nation's capital was forced to cope with the limitations of what our nineteenth and early twentieth-century ancestors would have called every day life. Without power, our options were limited.
The community in which I grew up had been electrified less than fifteen years when I was born. During my boyhood, we had neighbors who lived without electricity, mostly for fear of fire and electrocution. Somehow, they never quite made the connection between coal oil lamps and fire hazards. Oil lamps were a familiar hazard. Electricity was a great unknown and prone to fail during summer and winter storms.
My grandmother cooked on a wood stove four seasons of the year. So did my mother until 1953 when Dad bought her a stove that used liquid propane as its fuel. He chose gas because electric power was unreliable and cooking and eating were important even when the power was out.
At my Grand Dad's house, water was pumped by hand and carried to the kitchen in a bucket. A good friend's family dipped their water from a nearby spring. Our electric pump provided cold water to the kitchen as long as the power was on; during power outages, we hauled water pumped from my grand parents' well in ten gallon milk cans.
Water for washing was heated on the kitchen stove summer and winter. There was no shower; the bathtub was made by Wheeling Steel, hung on a nail on the back porch and was dragged in at bath time. We learned early how to take a sponge bath.
There was no bathroom. The "necessary facility" was an outhouse which required a walk, or else a chamber pot that had to be emptied daily. People back then dealt with a lot of mess and smells with which people today are entirely unfamiliar.
There was no central heat and no air conditioning, but houses were designed with windows to take advantage of whatever cooling breezes there were. When it was hot, we slowed down, drank lots of water, and stayed in the shade as much as possible. When it was cold, we put on extra layers, piled extra quilts on the bed, and built the fire a bit hotter in the stove.
Some would say that times were simpler back then. And, when viewed through one lens, they were. But that simplicity required more knowledge, more skills, and more labor than we are used to expending today. In those times, these now antiquated skills were a normal part of life, necessary for comfort and survival, learned and practiced almost from the time one could walk.
Today, we learn, practice, and rely on different skills for our comfort and survival. Today, our twenty-first century houses and facilities are ill designed or equipped to support a nineteenth century lifestyle for more than a short time. Yet, when the power goes out, we are returned to the capabilities of the nineteenth century and must make do with that which is.
When the power goes out, I wonder how well my life skills match up to those of my grand parents and great grand parents.
How well do yours?
How would you make do and survive an extended period without power?
What would you have to do differently in order to thrive in such an environment?
Monday, July 2, 2012
Independence Day
"Let freedom ring.
Let the white bird sing.
Let the whole world know that today
Is a day of remembering...
Roll the stone away
Let the guilty pay;
It's Independence Day!"
(from "Independence Day, as sung by Martina McBride)
June of 1776 was hot in Philadelphia where representatives of thirteen English-speaking colonies on the North American Continent were "in Congress Assembled". The curtains were drawn lest the content of their deliberations would be reported to the King's authorities and they be charged with treason. The windows were also closed, adding to the general stuffiness and discomfort of the delegates. In the absence of modern sanitation, the city swarmed with so many flies that a motion to open a window was staunchly opposed because it would admit too many.
The delegates were among the leading citizens of their colonies, among them John Adams and John Hancock of Massachusetts, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Caesar Rodney of Delaware, Samuel Chase and Charles Carroll of Maryland, Richard Henry Lee and Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, and Lyman Hall of Georgia.
They were planters, they were trades persons, they were businessmen and merchants. And they were met to petition his Majesty, the King of England, for redress of certain grievances, the chief of which were taxes arbitrarily imposed on them by a far-away crown before whom they had no official representation.
Some wished to to restore harmony with the mother country. Others favored dissolving all bonds with England.
After much debate an more than a few false starts, a committee was formed to draft a declaration of "independency." The result, mostly written by Thomas Jefferson begins with the words "When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands that have connected them with another" and continues to speak of self-evident truths: "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
These were radical ideas.
The rights of citizens are inalienable rather than granted as favors by a capricious ruler? Radical!
Citizens have a right to live freely and pursue their own interests rather than those of their liegelord? Radical!
Governments are formed to secure the rights of the citizenry rather than the privileges of the chosen few? Radical!
Governments are to derive their power from the consent of those governed rather than the divine right of kings? Radical!
Citizens have the right and even have the duty to abolish an oppressive government and then to form a new government based on principals that seem good to the citizens themselves rather than what seems good to some distant monarch? Unspeakably radical, treasonous, and revolutionary.
By assenting to these ideas, by declaring all things connecting the thirteen colonies to the mother country dissolved, and by claiming for themselves the rights of independent states, those who signed the declaration were committing treason against the English Crown. Yet they approved, and signed. Each one signing pledged for the support of the Declaration, with a firm reliance on divine providence, their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.
Independence day isn't only about fireworks and picnics and dogs and burgers and beer. It's about radical ideas. It's about self evident truths and inalienable rights and duties. It's about pledging your life, your fortune, and your sacred honor.
How radical are you?
How do you claim your inalienable rights?
Are you willing to join the signers and pledge, for the support of this Declaration, your life, your fortune, and your sacred honor?
Friday, June 22, 2012
To Live Better
A television add for one of the local shopping centers recently featured the slogan
Buy MORE!
Live BETTER!
It's a great slogan built solidly on the foundation that enough is good, more is better, and too much is just about right. After all, we live in the land of Sam's Club, the Walmart Super Center and Mall of the Americas where getting more is a sport and shopping has attained the entertainment value of a trip to Vegas. Who can resist the idea that more of this, that, or the other will make us happier?
So, we buy more and more until our closets, our basements, our garages, and our dwelling places are packed and we have long since lost track of exactly what we have. At this point, we go out and rent storage so we can pack away even more stuff, and then go out and acquire even more. Is this not madness?
Lacking cash, we eagerly slap down plastic to get what we want RIGHT NOW. Or we sign a paper, and pledge future earnings to obtain something NOW. We willingly trade future freedom for debt and debt for immediate stuff until debt has absorbed our freedom and we can no longer acquire more debt or more stuff. Is this too not madness?
The problem with dancing all night always comes when it's time to pay the piper. The problem with buying more to live better is that sooner or later the bills must be paid.
I have reached that season of life where more stuff and new stuff have become increasingly less important. I'm discovering that stuff that was useful once now sits in the back basement, out of sight and out of mind. I'm discovering too many almost "new" items packed away in same the boxes in which they came from the factory, used once or twice and then set aside, their purchase price a tax on my own stupidity. If I don't look at it or use it, why have it?
After the greater part of a lifetime, I'm discovering that stuff is not what makes me happy and that buying more to live better is a lie. I'm discovering that buying and having less gives me more -- more money, more space, more time, more freedom, and more enjoyment of what I have.
Living better can't be bought, but must be earned. Really living better is not about stuff, but about people and relationships.
I can't buy friendship, but more and closer and better friends make my life better.
I can't buy cheerfulness and good will, but I can practice having more of both, and that practice makes my life better.
I can't buy a positive attitude, but I can practice being positive, and live better because of it.
Life is not about the stuff I can buy. Life is about things and qualities that can never be bought, but must be planted, cultivated, and grown.
What do you have that you don't use?
What do you really need in order to live better?
Is it something you can buy, or must it be cultivated?
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Wisdom from my Dad
Dads don't show very well in the entertainment media of late. Father figures like Robert Young of Father Knows Best, Ben Cartwright of Bonanza and even Dr. Cliff Huxtable of The Cosby Show have been replaced by a generation of TV dads whose purpose seems to be adding comic relief as a convenient foil for a strong female lead. Books like S--t My Dad Says and its spin-off TV Show, Stuff My Dad Says, also portray Dad as an illogical and inconsistent buffoon.
Let me state that my dad was my first and greatest hero. Though neither rich nor educated past high school when it came to the business of living and making a life, Dad remains one of the wisest men I have ever known.
Dad was a farmer. His wisdom was the wisdom of the farm, things obvious to those who work the land but elusive to those who didn't.
I learned from Dad that there is a time to do everything and time doesn't wait for you. You must act within it. There is a season for planting and a season to harvest. Plant too early or late and your yield will be less. Harvest too early or late and your yield will be limited and the quality of your product poor. "To every thing there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven." Miss that time and miss out.
In a related area, work must be done when it is available to do. One harvest season, I asked Dad why we had to get up so early. His reply was "We have to get up extra early so we can work extra late." When I said "That doesn't make any sense," Dad said "It doesn't have to make sense. It's the way things are." Crops and the seasons don't wait for people. People have to put in the hours to work the crop as the season demands. It doesn't have to make sense. It just the way things are.
What you plant determines what you harvest. Plant wheat, harvest wheat. Plant corn, harvest corn. Whatever you plant, you will also get weeds. Getting rid of weeds is a lot of work. But, to succeed at farming, you have to get rid of or at least control the weeds.
Work is honorable. One of my Dad's favorite sayings was "Whether you're digging ditches or directing a corporation, it's all food on the table." In Dad's world, putting food on the family table and keeping a roof over the family's head gave work dignity and gave the worker honor. What was done was not nearly as important as the results: food on the table, a roof overhead. To keep both was the true measure of success. To keep doing it day after day, season after season, and year after year was worthy of the highest respect.
The highest complement my Day could pay anyone was "He'd give you the shirt off his back if you needed it," which went well with my Mom's "Put another cup of water in the soup. Company's coming.!" You may not have much, but you always have enough to share. And you always share what you have, not because it's good, but because it's the right thing to do.
From my Dad, I learned that wisdom is not complicated. Doing the wise thing is usually very simple.
There is a time for everything. Do it then.
What you plant determines what you will harvest, both on the farm an in life.
It takes a lot of work to stay weed free, but you have to do it if you expect a yield.
Work is honorable. Work that puts food on the table is the most honorable of all. Nothing can diminish that honor. You have to do the work when the work needs to be done no matter how long it takes.
And, one never has so little he cannot share.
Wisdom from my Dad; it has become part of me, and through me, of my children.
What wisdom from your Dad has become part of you?
What are you doing to pass it down to your children?
Let me state that my dad was my first and greatest hero. Though neither rich nor educated past high school when it came to the business of living and making a life, Dad remains one of the wisest men I have ever known.
Dad was a farmer. His wisdom was the wisdom of the farm, things obvious to those who work the land but elusive to those who didn't.
I learned from Dad that there is a time to do everything and time doesn't wait for you. You must act within it. There is a season for planting and a season to harvest. Plant too early or late and your yield will be less. Harvest too early or late and your yield will be limited and the quality of your product poor. "To every thing there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven." Miss that time and miss out.
In a related area, work must be done when it is available to do. One harvest season, I asked Dad why we had to get up so early. His reply was "We have to get up extra early so we can work extra late." When I said "That doesn't make any sense," Dad said "It doesn't have to make sense. It's the way things are." Crops and the seasons don't wait for people. People have to put in the hours to work the crop as the season demands. It doesn't have to make sense. It just the way things are.
What you plant determines what you harvest. Plant wheat, harvest wheat. Plant corn, harvest corn. Whatever you plant, you will also get weeds. Getting rid of weeds is a lot of work. But, to succeed at farming, you have to get rid of or at least control the weeds.
Work is honorable. One of my Dad's favorite sayings was "Whether you're digging ditches or directing a corporation, it's all food on the table." In Dad's world, putting food on the family table and keeping a roof over the family's head gave work dignity and gave the worker honor. What was done was not nearly as important as the results: food on the table, a roof overhead. To keep both was the true measure of success. To keep doing it day after day, season after season, and year after year was worthy of the highest respect.
The highest complement my Day could pay anyone was "He'd give you the shirt off his back if you needed it," which went well with my Mom's "Put another cup of water in the soup. Company's coming.!" You may not have much, but you always have enough to share. And you always share what you have, not because it's good, but because it's the right thing to do.
From my Dad, I learned that wisdom is not complicated. Doing the wise thing is usually very simple.
There is a time for everything. Do it then.
What you plant determines what you will harvest, both on the farm an in life.
It takes a lot of work to stay weed free, but you have to do it if you expect a yield.
Work is honorable. Work that puts food on the table is the most honorable of all. Nothing can diminish that honor. You have to do the work when the work needs to be done no matter how long it takes.
And, one never has so little he cannot share.
Wisdom from my Dad; it has become part of me, and through me, of my children.
What wisdom from your Dad has become part of you?
What are you doing to pass it down to your children?
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Freedom's Just Another Word
"Freedom's just another word
For nothin' left to lose.
Nothin' ain't worth nothin
But it's free!"
-- Kris Kristofferson, Me and Bobbie McGee
What is freedom?
Does Kristofferson have it right or wrong? Is freedom really just another word for nothing left to lose? Or is it something else?
Does Kristofferson have it right or wrong? Is freedom really just another word for nothing left to lose? Or is it something else?
Freedom is about alternatives. Freedom is about choice. Archibald MacLeish writes that "Freedom is the right to choose, the right to create for yourself the alternatives of choice. Without the possibility of choice and the exercise of choice, a man is not a man, but a member, an instrument, a thing.
Another source paraphrases MacLeish as follows: "Freedom is the right of an individual to form alternatives, evaluate them, and to select from among them."
Freedom is predicated on alternatives. Be wary of attempts to limit or exclude alternatives. Less alternatives mean less freedom. A single alternative allows no freedom at all. If I have no alternatives, I have no freedom.
Freedom is predicated on being able to develop options and alternatives. Be wary of attempts to provide a limited menu of ready-made options. If I am not allowed to form alternatives, I have no freedom. If I am not allowed to develop multiple alternatives, I am not free.
Freedom is predicated on choice. Be very wary of those who would choose your preferred option for you. If I am not allowed to select for myself from among alternatives, I have no freedom. Choices lead to actions, and actions provide outcomes. And those outcomes lead to the choices I have available today.
Rather than another word for nothing left to loose, freedom is another word for many things to choose, for the duty to form and select among alternatives and options available to you, and the responsibility, for better or worse, to own the outcome.
And, even when alternatives don't exist or are denied us, we have the choice of deciding how we will act and react. Even on the darkest of days, we are left a choice. Even in the darkest prison, we have this one freedom.
Consider yourself.
What options are available to you?
What are the likely outcomes of each?
Choose wisely and well, for in that choice is freedom.
Rather than another word for nothing left to loose, freedom is another word for many things to choose, for the duty to form and select among alternatives and options available to you, and the responsibility, for better or worse, to own the outcome.
And, even when alternatives don't exist or are denied us, we have the choice of deciding how we will act and react. Even on the darkest of days, we are left a choice. Even in the darkest prison, we have this one freedom.
Consider yourself.
What options are available to you?
What are the likely outcomes of each?
Choose wisely and well, for in that choice is freedom.
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