Majesty

Nothing compares to the majesty of God.

I have seen the creativeness of humans. Over the last week I saw what humans with incredible talent and imagination can accomplish given enough time and resources. They can create illusions of flight; they can make fire explode in the sky timed to music or make water leap and dance as it is filled with lights and pictures. They can bring joy to the face of a child.

But last night, as I lay awake in the bed, I was reminded of the majesty of God.

To hear the boom of thunder - not thunder as I was raised, but the boom of long lasting thunder, thunder so deep and powerful it shook the house for 2o seconds; to see the repeated flashes of lightning that do not just light up the night sky but flood it with a brilliance; to hear and see the cascading rain as it not only reflects the lightning but as it fills the lakes and streams and aquifers to provide water for all of life - is to be reminded of the majesty and power of God.

To hear and see all this - to stand in the door frame at the dead of night and be confronted with the reality of the nature that God has created and how, in the end, our individual creativity can only mimic, not equal - to see all of this and take it in and allow oneself to be flooded with the glory and power of the creation and to look up at Him who created all of this - is to allow oneself to be reminded visibly and powerful of the majesty of God.

Returning

"I found my calling. It didn't come to me, I came to it. It was a bolt of lightning that didn't make a sound. It struck me in the brain and went all the way through my heart. Sometimes you have to look for your calling. Sometimes you have to feel it. Callings are mostly silent." - Jeffrey Gitomer

The return from vacation - a real vacation - is always something of a tonic for me, at least that period of time after I've gotten home but before I've become enmeshed in the realities of work. The fact that we returned from The Happiest Place on Earth certainly helps - it is such a monument to creativity, to the power of what is possible, that one cannot help but return recharged in mind and spirit.

To face the reality of life.

Reality. There's a concept. As I write this, I cannot estimate how many e-mails await me in my inbox crying out for resolution, how many people are waiting to corral me once I come in with the "Hey, Good to see you back, hope you had fun, here's my problem". The heights of refreshment, seemingly ready to be brought down in short order.

But let's be honest about it: I chose this.

Yes, I know, one has to have a job (and life) of course, and one can never look too far into the future to see how things will turn out. But the reality is that once I became aware, I chose to stay.

But there are two choices I can make:

1) Choose my attitude. Things will bother me only if I let them. I need to put work - and those who work there - in the proper frame of reference. I need to control it and them, not the other way around.

2) Change my circumstances. This can come in a number of ways: changing where I work, changing what I work at, changing how I work on the things that are really important. If one does not like the circumstances, change the circumstances.

The funny thing is that, looking at the past week and the upcoming one, I could tell you what I think my calling is. It's very different than one I am doing now, and the odd thing is that I could do both (best of all worlds, right?). The question is just a matter of will.

So then, who will win: me, or my circumstances?

Vacation

Dear Readers:

I'm doing something I haven't done in 3 years on this blog: I'm taking a week off.

We're already here at The Happiest Place on Earth, after 2 days of long travel in the car, looking forward to 3 days of fun-filled family excitement.

If I write, I will. If not, don't take it badly - I'm exhausted but having a good time!

Winter Spring Day

Blue Norther bears down,
making the promise of spring
a blustery dream.

A Little Matter of Perspective

Last night Nighean Gheal and I were praying. As we were going through our prayer requests, she included people that had been affected by the recent tornado and one of her teachers who had suffered a death in the family, as well as for safe travels during our vacation. After we finished and I was heading out of her room, she said "Dad, it seems weird."

"Weird" I replied?

"Weird. We're praying for us to have a safe trip at the same time we're praying for the people in tornadoes and my teacher's family death. It just seems weird."

Perspective. That's the word that popped into my head as I finished saying good night and headed back to my room.

Oftentimes we as individuals, and certainly we as a society, have lost perspective. We fall into one of two errors: either we treat everything as mattering the same, or we treat the things that are not significant as if they are.

Think about it: my relationship with my children and my completion of every minor element at my job have two very different long term effects and outcomes - but too often, what do I treat as being the most important? Work becomes the thing I get exercised about and concerned about; other things get placed into the sidebars of my life.

Which of these truly matters more? Which of these is truly more significant? The job? - there will always be something else I do (in my industry, I've worked at 8 companies) - or my children, my relationship with them, and impact of that relationship on the future.

Or to the discussion last night - we should certainly pray about all things, but do I give them different weight in my own mind? Do I truly rank how I pray to the great needs, or are all needs equal?

Perspective can change, if we will let it. It just entails deciding: what is truly important, and what is not - and living with those decisions. Because, once you've decided, the things of importance will dominate the perspective and how one acts, leaving those things of lesser value to be swept away in the stream of time.

Defeat

From the heights of confidence to the depths of despair in one day.

There's nothing like coming home at the end of the day in which you had started out so strong to find that you are completely undone.

Sure, there were a lot of factors: the sudden realization that you are completely filling the position of someone before you except two levels (and two paygrades) below them, including the part where you have become "legally liable"; the mysterious expenses that continually seem to nibble away at any attempt for a budget; the fact that unlike every department around you, you are truly on your own in terms of management or collegial support; a potential interview suddenly looks like it's much less of a good deal; and the simple fact that you woke up essentially at 0230 and didn't really successfully go back to sleep.

It's made essentially more disheartening by the fact that that very more, you were brimming with confidence that "You can" - but by the time you crawl into bed, it's more a weak call of "Well, maybe I could possibly..."

So what do you do? Well, this morning I went through the same routine I did the day before. Yes, I didn't feel nearly as confident as I did yesterday, but I did the activities anyway. Am I feeling any more confident? No, not really - I tried to manufacture the sensation, but it doesn't seem to have worked.

But maybe that is okay. Maybe that is part of the whole process - not just that self belief, but simply the will to get up after a day of defeats and try again. Even that process of trying, perhaps, is a form of self belief.

Once more into the breech dear friends, once more.

Self Belief

"Circumstances don't define you; where you are is not who you are." - mother of Ursula Burns, Xerox CEO

I suffer from a lack of Self Belief.

I'm not really sure where this originates from. It's not as if I did not have incredibly supportive parents that supported my various activities growing up (some of which worked well, some of which were somewhat less than successful) and it's not as if I have not had my share of success moving through life. But fundamentally, down deep, I lack belief in myself.

Self belief, in case you were wondering, is not the same as self love. I abhor the concept of self love based on the fact that I know all too well the sin and failures that dwell in my life. To love that is which is unlovable is to enable that which should not be enabled. But belief in self is not the same as self love; it's the concept that one is competent, one is capable. Simply put, I can.

This is something that while we can gather from others, we cannot maintain with others. Without self belief, all the propping up our friends and loved ones do will come to naught and we will find ourselves again at the same level we have always been. We'll be surprised, of course, and wonder why this or that didn't work, then bewail a cruel universe that destines us to this place.

Self belief is not deterred by circumstances. It neither is added to when others support us, nor is it subtracted from when no-one believes but ourselves. It presses on towards whatever the goal that has been set for it, confident that it will make it there.

Self belief does not look for handouts. It does not look to what others can do for it or what others owe it; it accepts the fact that while individuals can assist, ultimately the person is responsible for the success or failure in their lives. It has learned that the greatest achievement comes from that which is achieved, not simply "feeling good" about who the person is.

It believes that far more things are possible than what we think. We are not omniscient and are are not God to be sure; but we are far more capable of doing great things than what we allow ourselves to believe.

As I learned this morning, the CEO of Xerox, Ursula Burns, started as an executive assistant and worked her way up. The circumstances of her origin did not determine the eventual point to which she arrived. It is evident that she believed she was capable of far more than what she was doing - and she took action to make that self belief reality.

If you really believed in yourself and your God-given skills and talents, what are you capable of?

Rust

Yesterday I undertook a task that I was putting off all week. Sword cleaning.

Not just the typical cleaning and oiling of the blade - no this was a full cleaning: removing the mekugi (bamboo pins that hold in the sword), pulling off the tsuka (hilt), removing the fittings - seppa, tsuba, seppa, and hibaki - and cleaning the nakago (tang) of the blade.

I always freak out about this a bit, mostly because of the fact that I tend to have the ability to not reassemble things in their original order. Still, the potential of rust overcame my fear of having to drag an unfinished blade to class for assembly, so off we did.

Upon pulling everything apart (which went better than expected), I found that I did in fact have a problem: a patch of rust on both sides of the nakago where the hibaki (a brass fitting which covers the transition of the tang to the full blade. There was some rust on the fittings as well, but it was the worst under the hibaki.

I sat for almost an hour trying to work things off: applying metal polish, letting it dry, working on the smaller pieces, rubbing it down, reapplying, all the time wondering "how could it have gotten so far?" My guess, after looking at everything, is that the last time that I cleaned the whole blade - when I rewrapped my tsuka - is that I failed to completely oil the inside of the hibaki, which when in contact with the blade, created the rust. I don't clean the entire sword as often - I'd like to say it's because I'm too busy (it really takes about an hour), but more likely it's due to the fact that I'm more lazy that busy. It appears that this failure to regularly maintain all aspects of the sword is what contributed to the rust.

I finally finished removing most of what I could get at then oiled everything heavily and reassembled the entire sword. Looking at it from the outside, you cannot tell anything was really wrong - there was one faint dark line under the hibaki that gave rise to the whole incident.

True, it is just about my sword. But like everything else, Iaido is really life, and the lessons of iaido are transferable to more than just the dojo.

Even like the nakago of the sword, we are both outer and inner. To let one go - to be so concerned about polishing the outer side and preventing rust - while forgetting about the other is to eventually invite disaster. With enough rust, a nakago will be rendered useless, and so too the sword. Thus we must pay attentiong to maintaining both the outer and inner person, even as we maintain the outer and inner blade. Rust on either will destroy its usefulness.

Rusty nakagos may be easily repaired. Rust on the soul is far more difficult to efface.

New Home Spring

Among New Home Oaks,
The white spray of plum blossoms
reminds me of Old Home

Resourcing Conundrum

I find myself caught in the conundrum of modern American labor: what to do?

I feel as if I am trapped between the Scylla of high and growing expectations and the Charybdis of the modern workplace. On the one hand (just as everywhere else), expectations are high and growing. We are doing more than ever and trying to ensure we meet all the expectations of the marketplace we work in. On the other hand, what I'm finding is that the resources we have are not sufficient for what we have.

Resources are a funny thing in current American business. There seem to be two types of companies: those that are able or willing to resource appropriately, and those that cannot or will not.

The distinction is important. There are, in my experience, companies which would increase their resources if they could but cannot due to budget and other constraints. Then there are others which, while they might have the resources to do so, will not.

The second part of the conundrum - beyond the the "do more with no more" part - is that resourcing is seemingly the one thing you cannot discuss.

Reputations, we are told, are build on individuals doing more with less. Do not seek to build empires - seek to be more efficient, to be resource conservator rather than a resource spender, for this is the way to true success. Too often, to suggest that additional resources are needed is to imply that one is incompetent, not able to fulfill the duties one was hired for - let alone seek to achieve more.

Mistakes or failures due to resourcing become the issue never discussed, the elephant in the room. It simply is not discussed, as it becomes the thing by which other people point and discuss the failure to perform.

Other paths can be tried, of course. Efficiencies can be sought. Items can be delegated and departments can be empowered (however, all the delegation and empowerment will not assist in completing something if the will is not there). Plans and programs can be drawn up and rolled out with great fanfare.

But that still leaves the issue: how does one meet the expectations that are given based on the resources available when, deep in one's heart, it is simply not enough and there is no way of securing the sufficient amount?

Plateau

Try to find my way in the increased world of higher expectations.

There comes a point in every activity, every job, every relationship where one realizes two things:

1) This is a good as it it going to get. The limit has been reached.
2) The resources you have are the resources you are going to get. Further aid or support is a pipe dream.

What I would like to hear from myself is that this has given me greater clarity in my life. Instead, it seems only to have given me greater stress.

Stress? Yes, stress originating from the fact that the expectations and resources behind the situation generally have not changed. The goals are still the same and the resources are still what they have been. You are expected to perform at the same level as previously or even better - and Heaven forfend you should mention the lack of either. The expectation - always the expectation - is that you are an adult, and whatever sacrifices are necessary for the accomplishment of the task are presumed.

Adapt or die. The New Normal.

The stress results in a high level of frustration as well. I tack back and forth in my emotional state between a bland sense of acceptance of the situation as it is and a high level of anger about lashing out and making others deal with the same situation. Neither, of course, is correct.

But what then is correct? Work harder at the job or project or relationship? There are only a certain amount of hours in a day to accomplish things. Work smarter? I'm never really sure what that means - that becomes a never ending target that is judged by others about how "smart" you are working.

It's as if there was some revolution on the tip of my mind, something floating just beyond the reach of consciousness that has some kind of solution. I can feel hovering there, seemingly waiting to be discovered.

But is it there? Or is another attempt by mind simply to veer aside from the realities that exist and cannot change?

Despondency At Work

Strangely despondent at work yesterday.

I can't really trace it down to a single factor. It's not as if work was more overwhelming than it has been in the past. It's not as if it was the middle of the week (it was Monday). It's not as if the people that usually bother me were there (they were not).

So what was up?

The only thing that I can pin down is a sense of the overwhelming. A sense of reviewing document after document, knowing that there are (literally) at least a thousand more behind them needing review as well. A sense of the fact that no matter how much I do in the time I'm there, I leave with just as much work there as I arrived with. A sense of the fact that, longer term, all the effort is doomed to fail.

Would it help if there were victories? Sure - but as I've discovered, victories are not recognized as such. They are, apparently, merely expectations of things that were supposed to be accomplished, not significant milestones along the way. This alone can make any advancement towards future "victories" very difficult to achieve.

Would I find less despondency if I would doing something else? Hard to say - at this point, I can scarcely imagine doing anything else other than what I am doing now (which may be part of the problem). Would I find less despondency if I was doing what I am doing somewhere else? Again, hard to say - every location has it's own specific issues, and it really seems to be a case of the grass always appears greener wherever you are.

But the question remains: How does one fight the sense of one's effort amounting to nothing, every day?

Traveling and Scheduling

I am rediscovering that I am a creature of schedules and habit.

One thing that traveling always does for (to?) me is that it shakes me out of the schedule I have arranged for my life. One might say on the macro side it is good: it helps one to see new things and expand one's world. However, on the micro side, it's terrible.

Over the course of the last two years I have carefully worked to find the optimal schedule for my time away when I'm not work. My mornings have fluctuated only a little over the last two years, my evenings more so. It's an attempt on my part to practice the most important things I have in my life given the time that I have available. Within a hair's breath (and given enough sleep the night before) I have created a fairly detailed list of what I need to do in the morning and even can (with a fair degree of accuracy) tell you what I am doing given at a particular time.

Traveling changes that, of course. And not only during the actual traveling experience. What I have found is that it disrupts my schedule for up to a week after - not just in missed sleep (which seems to happen all to frequently) but in trying to re-establish my routine in the morning. It's almost as if my "routine equilibrium" was so disorganized that it takes a while for my inner self to refind its balance and get reset.

It's troubling, of course, because I always tend to lose the progress I've made as I try to re-establish what I was doing. And it's interesting to me, because I may be more usual - or maybe unusual - than I thought: where many people wither on routine, I thrive.

Panning for Truth

"Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not be its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold." - Leo Tolstoy

How do we seek and deal with the truth? Do we believe it to be something that is ever expanding and accretive process, or is it something that we need to work at by paring away all that is not the truth until we arrive at it?

It's not as idle a conversation as one might think. In our social lives, in our work lives, in our political lives, even in our personal lives, there is a great discussion of what truth is and, therefore, how we are to run our lives.

It's not, as Pilate asked Christ, "What is truth?" in the sense of the nature of truth. It's "How do we obtain the truth?"

Does truth grow? Is it an evolving thing? Or is it something, as Tolstoy seems to suggest, that is not so much grown as it is mined by removing all that is not truth?

Gold panning, for those that don't know, is essentially this process. First by eliminating larger rocks, the miner agitates the remaining mud and gravel in a pan with water. As the material is agitated, the heavier items (including gold) fall to the bottom of the pan as the lighter material is washed away. This process is repeated over and over until all that is remaining is gold.

Has the the gold grown in the process of panning? The unwise might say "Yes it has, as the over time more and more is in the bottom of the pan." The wise would respond "It has not grown. The amount has increased, but only in relationship to the amount of material panned to get that gold" (and trust me, you have to pan a lot of material to get a little gold).

So here is the question: are teaching others - indeed, are we teaching ourselves - to pan for truth as for gold, to mine it out of Life as we would seek anything else precious and worthy? It's the same as panning, after all: you have to go through a lot of dirt and rocks to get that which is most precious and even then, you have to continue to wash away everything that is not what you seek until you find it.

Giving Up for Lent

And what did I give up for Lent this year?

Lent and practice of it has become more difficult for me as the years have passed. In one way, it's become more difficult simply because it's become more meaningful: while I don't completely grasp the entire concept of it yet, I'm certainly farther along that road than I was. The more we begin to comprehend a difficult truth, the more the truth opens up in our mind for application, like a flower continuing to bloom or the painting in which we continue to see greater details as we continue to look.

It's also become more difficult because of the concept of giving something up, rooted as an act of penitence (Yes, I understand it's not specifically in Scripture, but acting penitently and remorsefully for our sin is - and besides, it hurts nothing and self discipline is always good). Originally I viewed it purely as giving something up. I did sugar one year (do you know how many things have sugar?), soda one year, sweets another (having learned from my "no sugar" experience) - but always it was something physical and an extra, not something needful.

Then upon hearing the suggestion of a preacher, I added to my giving up adding on - that I would also do something during Lent that I would not do otherwise, make a special effort, whether it be praying regularly, reading a portion of the book of John systematically, or practicing some other action.

But, as noted above, things can become more difficult as we move through them.

I now hardly ever drink soda and sweets, though I love them, can be surrendered at will. Other things I like to do are either too easy to let go (such as watching the occasional movie) or are outlets (such as Iaido or reading). What to give up?

This year for Lent, I am giving up criticism.

I immediately put myself at risk by writing this, of course. Criticism? Criticism of whom? Of what? When?

Of whom is to remain between me and God. Suffice it to say that it will be an active effort on my part.

I shuddered a bit as I considered this. After all, this would be difficult. I almost instinctively know that I will fail, which throws me back on I should never try it and go back to something less difficult.

But the risk of failure here is no greater than the risk of failure in any other activity I have undertaken. Did I eat cookies during Lent in the past? Sure I did. Somehow I did not castigate myself for failure the way I am considering doing it now.

Why? Because criticism is a huge sacrifice for our selfish selves. It means that I suspend verbal judgement of others, that I don't engage in the secret pleasure of zinging someone (the secret pleasure of myself and others, I might add), that I simply allow others to be and go about my life.

Frankly, I'm uncomfortable enough just writing about it.

Which probably means it was the right choice.

Change

Change is always a great deal harder than what it made out to be by the media. Change is portrayed as perhaps something a bit painful but something which is moved through fairly easily(cue montage here, as our hero goes through taking actions to improve his life; the cuts are short: smiling at someone here, helping someone change a tire there, as a either a 1980's song or sweeping orchestral piece plays in the background). The reality is that even the easiest of changes is a far harder exercise than one can imagine.

It's also difficult because we do not value the process of change as we should.

Too often it seems that we focus on being, rather than becoming. Again, thank our fixation on media and entertainment for this. We pay the attention to our stars and celebrities ("heros" is hardly a term I would use) as if we were worshipping a god, looking at the radiance of what they are or what they accomplish. Seldom if ever do we consider where they came from (maybe, if we're lucky, we'll get a short 5 minutes retrospective on their life) or the great amounts of work they had to pour into their life. It's not even as if we are encouraged to see it; instead, it's as if we're actually discouraged from looking at it. Look at what is, not at what it took to get there.

The result? Too often the generation that is or the generation that is coming give up too early, seeing that if things don't instantly "change", there's no point in starting. The reward - the thing that you are becoming as you change - is lost in the need for instant gratification and instant reward.

How is this combated? Biographies are one good way. Reading the stories of peoples lives is a great way to see them as they were and as they became. The change over the course of their lives, as recorded in a book, is helpful because it clearly lays out how they changing on the journey as they became what we know them as.

Another is simply to remind ourselves that the result of the change - the outcome - is only one aspect of the change, and maybe not even the best one. If I achieve a weight, I've accomplished something - but the changes in lifestyle and better health I enjoy are things that occurred along the way and are just as significant.

If we fail in this, if we lose the ability to communicate the totality and difficulty of change, what we will be left with is a generation who will become increasingly unable to accomplish anything except that which is easy and immediately gratifying. And easy and immediately gratifying is hardly the sort of foundation to build anything on.

Choosing One's Self

"It is what one is oneself and what one makes of one's life that matters." - Sir Ernest Shackleton

How often we become confused in life.

How often we mistake movement for action, conversation for communication, being present for being involved.

Especially, how often we mistake allowing the siren song of the world around us, the fads and interests of a society and civilization concerned largely with speed of action and entertainment and progression, for our own individual choosing.

Be assured: the "world", for all of its trumpeted phrases on life such as "Be the self you were always meant to be" and "Follow Your Bliss", is not really interested in that. Certainly, to the extent that you support the currently existing wisdom of what passes for "acceptable" in society, you'll be considered self actualized. But at the base line, the world is concerned about conformity, specifically yours, to the greater civilization around you.

How often have I found that "choosing for myself" or "being independent" is really just a mechanism for choosing the conventional wisdom of the age? And how many times have I found that really choosing for myself, really being my own person, is seen not so much as becoming myself as it is being a "nonconformist", "old fashioned", "Luddite (my favorite)", or even "archaic"?

Any time we rely on society or civilization to define who we are or what we believe, what we find is that we have really become an appendage of definer, subject to their definition of what constitutes personhood. It is only when we take ourselves firmly in hand, determine what we ourselves are and how we should live, that we will find that our choices are really choices and our decisions really reflect who we are.

Jesus in the Boat

"On the same day, when evening had come, He said to them 'Let us cross over to the other side. Now when they had left the multitude, they took Him along in the boat as He was. And other little boats were also with Him. And a great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that it was already filling. But He was in the stern, asleep on a pillow. And they awoke Him and said to Him, 'Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?'
Then he arose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea 'Peace, be still!' And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. But He said to them 'Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?' And they feared exceedingly, and said to one another, 'Who can this be, that even the wind and the sea obey Him!'" - Mark 4:35-41

How much faith do we have in God?

We, like the disciples, so often believe that we are in the purposes of God, that we hear his commands and that we are executing them. "Take the boat to the other side". "Right away, Lord", we shout out as we scurry around the decks of the ship of our lives, making ready to sail.

And then the storms come up.

One wonders what the disciples must have thought. They included fishermen who had spent their whole life on the sea of Galilee, so apparently when the storm arose they initially thought that it was no worse than that they had usually seen (I say this as someone who has never - and never wants to - experience a storm at sea).

But the storm increases in pitch and volume. The winds howl, the boat begins filling with water. There is no modern day coast guard or Bay Watch; if they go down there will be none to save them.

Jesus, they suddenly think. What about Jesus? Will He save us?

Jesus is in back, quite possibly exhausted by a long day of teaching the multitudes. He must have been tired, because the storm wasn't waking Him at all. Suddenly He's ripped out of sleep by the disciples saying "Master, don't you care if we drown?"

In passing, what a thing by these men to say to Christ. In chapter 3 of Mark, He had chosen these twelve men. Later in the chapter He had said that those who followed Him - His disciples - were as important - or more so - than His own family relations. He had ultimately come to sacrifice Himself these men and others - how could He not care?

But Christ addresses the immediate situation first. "Peace, be still!" And like that, no storm. No waves pushing over the side of the boat. A sky of clear stars and gentle breezes, I would imagine.

Only then, after He has saved them, does He rebuke them. "Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?"

Christ had brought them to this point. Christ had commanded them to go out over the water. Christ was even in the boat with them as they sailed. This was the Christ whom they had seen drive out demons, heal the sick, teach with authority. They had seen his displays of power, heard the testimony of John the Baptist.

And yet, when brought to the point of trial, they forgot that this was the same Jesus that was at the back of the boat. Having seen Him act in other situations, they had no belief He would act in theirs.

Really of course, we're no better. We Christians proclaim that God is in control of our lives, that He is ultimately in control of everything that occurs. And then, when we hit the storms of our own lives, we prove ourselves no better. "Hey God! I'm going under here - a little help?" we cry, as if somehow the omnipotent God is taking a nap and can't remember our names.

But as Christians, do we not acknowledge that Christ is the one that who guides our lives, who controls our circumstances? We are happy to follow when it is easy for us to see - it's when it becomes dangerous or perilous to ourselves that we doubt.

Note too that Christ seems to draw a comparison: "Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?" We're either fearful - full of fear and the circumstances around us - or have faith - faith in Christ who brought us here.

So when we meet the storms of our lives, do we recall that we, too, have Christ at the back of boat. And are we willing to have faith about His being there - or continue to react as the world does, in fear of that which we can see but not recalling "the substance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen?" (Hebrews 11:1)

Pushing Boundaries: Confrontation

I'm hitting the edge of my boundaries again - and I'm not liking it much.

This week's boundaries have been around confrontation of others and managing relationships, two things which are the least enjoyable to me.

Confronting others on issues where there is disagreement is not something I've ever really been good at. It's a function of the fact that I like to be liked; it's also a function of the fact that I don't like to be yelled at, which really doesn't happen that often but which I perceive much disagreement to end in. The corollary to that, managing my relationships, is being able to draw the boundaries between friendship and relationship, between making the work environment a pleasant place to be and being sure that the work that needs to get done gets done.

I'm being driven by this as much as by anything else - pushed, if you will, into going over that wall and into the great big world beyond by two - Maeve of Connaught and Boudicca of the Iceni, who seem intent - kindly and helpfully so, but intent none the less - of pushing my boundaries out, of making me a better manager (dare we suggest leader), of making me "tough".

It has to be one of the most psychically painful things I have done in a long time.

What I'm finding is the actual confrontation itself is not the issue - it's what I do in my mind before and after that's the issue. Before, I'm constantly agonizing over what needs to be done, how do I phrase it, what will be the reaction of the person. I go through ever conceivable scenario in my mind in excruciating detail. After the fact I replay it in my mind: did I do okay? What are they thinking? Will I get fired? Will they quit? Will they ever talk to me again?

It occurs to me as I write this that maybe - possibly - I'm overdramatizing the whole thing in my mind a bit. Maybe I am - but maybe I also have this unreasonable dislike of conflict. At the same time as I write, I realize that I really do follow that process each and every time I go through the exercise.

Henry Ward Beecher said "I don't do more, but less, than other people. They do all their work three times over: once in anticipation, once in actuality, once in rumination. I do mine in actuality alone, doing once instead of three time."

Maybe pushing my boundaries is not only in how I deal with people, but how actually do how I deal with people. Decide and do, not decide and think about/do/think about what I have done.

Drained

Post meeting let down day.

The day following a Senior management meeting is, for me, one of the hardest workdays of the year (lucky me: they happen four times a year). The amount of effort that goes into each of these - about 40 hours of preparation, the meeting itself ( around 2 hours) and the post meeting write up and sign off (about another 2 hours) equates into so much effort going into the thing that, once down, I simply collapse internally.

This is always a bit difficult as one has all the other work which one is required to do which has essentially been put on hold while I attempt to do my best on a very visible piece of work. Even this morning I'm dragging as I move in my morning routine: the will to do what I normally do is simply not there.

The exercise, of course, is a good one: making presentations to senior management is always a good idea and the exercise of creating, reviewing and interpreting metrics is a useful skill that I can apply in may areas of my life. But the other part of me, the part that is slowly trying to rebuild the energy to go forward and continue with everything else that needs to be done, is asking the question "really?".

Presentations like this and the results remind me of the fact that, at heart, I am an introvert: performing for large crowds, while there may be some thrill in the version of holding people's attention and being recognized, is draining to me. I would still rather talk in a group of ten rather than present to a group of hundred. One can leave me engaged and excited; the other simply leaves me trying to get through the day after.

My Father's Brother

My father's brother died yesterday.

He was in fact my uncle, but I say "My father's brother" because of all my aunts and uncles, he was the one which we least saw - in fact, in the last 20 years I have probably saw him three times. "Uncle" can be as much of an honorific as it can be a statement of relationship.

His life was a series of ups and downs, partially brought on by conditions beyond his control - Type I childhood diabetes and the resulting health concerns which dogged him all his life at time when so much less was known, at least one business failure - and partially by decisions which he made which did not turn out well (as if we always made decisions which do). He usually lived far away and so we did not often see them, although I wonder now if that not only the simple fact of living busy lives as it was an conscious output on both sides to keep the peace.

The talk with my father ironically came at the end of a long day that I was feeling drained: a long day of preparing and re-preparing for the presentation to senior management tomorrow, followed by a quick dinner with the family to celebrate Valentine's day and then running off to Iaido class - the pressures of modern living, one could say.

And all of a sudden, the pressure comes off.

Death is the great perspective adjustor. We can profit from it when it happens around us, taking heed to the matters that are truly important versus what we convince ourselves are important, and change the way we live. Alternately, we can see what happens and learn nothing from it - which will turn out to be the biggest surprise to us when we suddenly realize that there is simply o more time to do anything and those tasks and items we put off to "someday" have suddenly been put off to "never".

It's trite but it's true: If you knew you would die tomorrow, what would you change about how you lived today?

Champis the Sheepherding Rabbit

In honor of Valentine's Day (and because I think this is fabulous), today's blog is dedicated to Champis, the Swedish Sheep Herding Rabbit. Enjoy!

Cold and Rainy

One of those cold mornings that you wish you could stay in bed.

The rain last night was an extension of yesterday: a morning temperature of 34 F, followed by sleet at 1300. We spent the rest of the cocooning in the house, avoiding the bitter cold (high of 41 F).

And then the night came.

I woke up this morning at around 0200 and 0345 to hear the rain hitting the roof and overflowing the gutter in front our bedroom which, no matter how hard I try to clean it out, continues to gather leaves and become clogged, becoming a stream right outside our bedroom window (but, I suppose, helpfully letting me know when it's raining hard). It was raining when I finally plunged myself out of bed at 0500; it is raining now as I write.

Outside temperature: 37 F (feels like 32 F!).

I sit inside at the computer and continue to gulp down my cup of hot coffee, then go to the back door and check the weather again. The blast of cold air and the dripping of the rain on my water storage barrels tells me that in spite of my wishes, the weather has not magically changed. I come back to the computer and have another shot of coffee, randomly thinking that the commute will not be pleasant this morning and mentally changing what I was going to wear to work.

Part of me is simply grateful for the rain, no matter what the temperature. We've had a hard summer this year and little enough rain so far, so anything - even when it comes with near freezing temperatures - is to be welcomed.

But there is another part - a part which, for the most part, is corralled in the back of my mind - which wishes that, for one day, it could simply convince me to "pretend" I never heard an alarm or thought that Monday was a holiday, turn off the computer and the lights, and head back to bed.

Integration

"Integrate what you believe into every single area of your life." - Meryl Streep

How well do we integrate what we believe into every single are of our lives?

If I consider it deeply, what I realize is that in many ways this is a concept which is often discusses as part of self-actualization but too often seems to be a luxury reserved for those who can afford it or those who are supported. Integration of what we believe - truly believe - is actually a costly endeavor - not just in terms of money, but in terms of reputation and the ability to survive - especially if your "integrated self" is contrary to the prevailing attitudes of the environment around you.

But does that make it a goal less worth striving for? Not all - in fact, as I continue to exist I find it to be one of the most important goals of all.

This concept of integration of our beliefs should be no surprise to the Christian, simply because this is what Christ expected of us: "He who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me" (John 14:21a). In fact, the Torah is a compendium of God commanding the people of Israel to integrate their beliefs, not just in the inner person (The Ten Commandments) but physically and visually through the dietary, moral and social laws. The ideal Jew was to integrate their belief in God both inwardly and outwardly, through moral behavior and correct thinking as much as through the physical manifestations of avoiding ceremonial uncleanness and being set apart.

But perhaps there is a lesson in failure of the Jewish nation, that they became so focused on the outward manifestations of integration that they forgot the true point of the inward integration: to be holy as God is holy.

Inward integration of our beliefs is always much more difficult. It requires time; it requires thought; it requires continual application of our beliefs to our active lives - and it requires a great deal of courage to live that out. Outward integration to a movement or society is always much easier, simply because we don't have to much: just agree with whoever is in charge and do what they say and we'll blend in.

Those that have integrated their beliefs into their lives always stand out. I cannot specifically give a key to how to know them any more than I can point to a wind blowing in the open plain and say "There it is". The integration is so complete that they simply are what they appear to be.

So perhaps the real question to ask is not "Why am I not integrating my beliefs into my live?" Integration is a process like any other that can be accomplished as it's been done before. Perhaps the real, the profound question is "What do I believe?" and the second, "Do I believe it to the point of acting on it?"

What to Do

Pondering career stability last night.

I had a long talk with Bogha Frois last night about work and the world and the way of things. As it turns out, we share many of the same thoughts about our current choice of careers.

The biggest point for both of us is the fact that we don't like the fact that we are essentially dependent on an employer for a job. Ah, you may say, this is true of everyone that works for someone else. That's true enough, I suppose - but it doesn't change the fact that the reality is that my career is at the disposal of someone else. I could work diligently and still be let go due to circumstances beyond my control, whether it be a downturn in business, a personal grudge, or a need for a scapegoat.

Which leads to the second point: I don't like the general direction of the economy. It's not my point to argue the pros or cons of the current economic policies (there are plenty of websites that will discuss such things in great detail; we don't do politics here) - what my point is that I, at least, am not filled with a sense that any rebound in the economy will lead to anything remotely like the situation prior to crash.

The third point: If I'm not in control of my career and I'm concerned about the economy, where I don't want to end up in 10 to 15 years is essentially begging for a job in my field, knowing that I will be in too high salary bracket for many due to experience. I've had to interview such people once or twice in my career that I was hiring for. One floats through my mind yet I can't remember the particulars; what I do recall is this sense of a man who was as old my boss interviewing with a quiet sense of desperation because he needed the position. I don't want to be that guy.

So where does that leave me? I'm not really sure. I have always believed that those who are the best in the industry will always have jobs; the problem is being in that top bracket. I also look to my own industry, when seems to be in the continuing throes of layoffs and downsizing, further compacting the labor pool.

Start over in something else? I'm a little too far along for that I guess - although as a friend pointed out, since you've got a daughter in elementary school, you're not really too old period.

Do something on my own? Great in theory - lousy in the practice of deciding what that would be and how I would make it work. My history in this arena ala The Firm is not such that it makes me eager to try again.

Questions without answers, answers I seem to need.

The thing I don't want, the thing I fear more than all, is having these vague feelings and in 15 years saying "I should have done what I thought about" - but by then, it will be too late.

Control of Things

There is so much I am not in control of concerning my life.

I hate it.

When I say "so much", what I really seem to be saying to myself is the things that I really want to be in control of. The big things, like new jobs and raises and, in general, good things happening to me. Or the things that really impact me, like the decisions of others that have an influence on my life - wishing that I had a say in such things, or even that I was consulted for my input prior t the decision.

Alas, it is too often the case that none of this is true. I end up sitting on the sidelines, waiting in vain for input that is never requested or dealing with the consequence of a decision that I was never consulted on - or worst of all, simply waiting in a seemingly empty universe for something, anything, to happen.

What I do seem to get is ability to influence things which don't seem to matter very much. Small tasks which seem not even to happen themselves but require my involvement. Things like getting paperwork accomplished at work (which I have to get others to finish), or continually following up with someone, or even just accomplishing simple things around the house like raking leaves and mowing. Do I have complete control of these items? Yes, absolutely. Does it seem to make a difference in the vast scheme of things? No, not at all.

Why then is the universe structured in such a way?

I'm not sure. I guess one could posit that by learning to do small things which we can accomplish, we gain the "right" to influence bigger things. Possible I suppose, although that seems to suggest a progression of events which is too often not present.

One could also suggest that such an arrangement teaches us patience, to learn to wait for things (for the Christian, to wait upon God) until things happen in their own good time. This is possible as well, although the line between waiting and becoming inactive in the pursuit of that which needs to be done can be a thin one.

My best guess is simply that it is a training in the reality of life.

The reality is that we don't control large chunks of our lives. Take our physical being: we can eat well and exercise and sleep but we can't control when cancer appears or a genetic disease comes out of nowhere to strike us down. We can't control the weather around us that can lay waste to our homes and loved ones through wind and water. We certainly cannot control people, who often seem to hinder us or outright hurt us in ways that seem incomprehensible - we cannot make them call to offer us a job or companionship, and we certainly cannot make them change their minds. And ultimately, we cannot control the length of our lives: our death is a date unknown to virtually all of us and there is ultimately nothing we can do to extend it significantly beyond what it will be.

All of the issues we consider needful to control are, in fact, little issues in comparison with the very facts of life itself. What is a new job compared to the loss of one's home, the jolt of a random bonus compared to death? Could it be that God has established the universe this way to remind us that, ultimately, we are in control of very little?

I suppose it's comforting in an odd way - there are lots of things I can't control, but in reality I could have never controlled them anyway. The fact that I thought I could was an illusion based on a mistaken view of my own place in the universe. Accepting that there is much I cannot control frees me to focus on that which I can.

Perhaps the better thought would be to rejoice in the fact that I am given the ability to have an impact on anything at all.

Clarity

We lose too much by a lack of clarity and power.

The key (as I believe any highly paid consultant would tell you) to communication is clarity - not just that you have a message, but that you present that message clearly. That you do it in such a way that whoever was to hear the message understands it completely and well. That they leave with either a decision to make or something to accomplish or a piece of knowledge that they did not previously have.

We prize clarity. We cry for it. Yet somehow, we continuously find ourselves in the position that we feel our communications to be largely ineffective. Why is this?

One is perhaps a lack of confidence in ourselves and our message. We believe that what we have to communicate is important, but maybe we don't really believe it. Any failure, any wavering on that account will result in the message being garbled. We're too often not sure ourselves what we believe or that we are sufficient to bring the message.

Another is our perception of how the message will be received. People like to hear items that are good or praise them; they are much less receptive when the message is bad news or something about themselves which is less than praiseworthy. The more powerful people become, the seemingly less and less they like to hear such items. Why? If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that they have attained their position by trusting in their own abilities and efforts (and they have the results to prove it) and that anything which is in conflict with that view is immediately due to suspiscion as it does not otherwise reinforce their view. We can tend to pre-account for that view by imagining all possibilities (usually bad ones) of how the message will be received which changes how we give the message - before it is even delivered!

A third reason is often fear - fear for ourselves. Being the bearer of news which is not what people want or need often creates fear in ourselves - fear of how people will react, or even fear for the results of the communication. We tend to either try and parse our word for less than a full effect or blurt out the message as quickly as possible and retreat to our own mental burrow, where we fearfully wait for the effects to come as we huddle every time the earth around us quakes.

When people they want clarity of communication and they want the truth, they too often seldom really mean this. What they often mean is that that they want the truth that accords with the "truth" that they already know to be true in their lives. But how often we as communicators oblige this, by shying away from what should be said because we don't believe in the message or we predispose ourselves to how the message will be received or that we fear the results to ourselves.

Clarity in communication should probably seldom involve loud voices and shouting - occassionally they're necessary, but they don't make things more clear. Only by overcoming our own fears and reservations can we do that. We can seldom control how the message is received. We can only do our best to make sure it is as clear as possible.

Missing Center

Centering is so hard to do these days.

I've no real sense of a center right now. Life seems to be ripping by at about 1000 miles an hour, and if I'm lucky I can get about one tenth of it in.

How does one bring oneself back to the center of one's existence? So often in my own life events and tasks seem to be dictating what I should do and how I should do it, rather than me dictating such things to my life.

I seem more busy but less purposeful, more involved but less engaged, more movement driven but less destination achieving. It leads to a life that is constantly in motion but seldom doing anything of value, a life that is constantly doing but seldom making a difference, a life that is always "active" but seldom bring deep value to others.

Would that I could clear this fog of existence from my mind to refocus on that which is truly important and less of what claims for itself how important it is.

Simplify

Simplify. This is the word which has come up repeatedly in my life lately.

Part of it is an simply an extension of how time is flowing in my life - I'm continuing to find that I seemingly have less and less time - so I have to simplify what I can do with my time. They'll always be more to do than I will be able to do, so I have to more carefully choose what I will do.

Maybe some of this is simply part of the years passing - we learn that there are things that we are simply never going to do. I can hold out my hopes for a touring gig as a harpist, but I think the chances of that happening are small at this point.

On the other hand, things we can't do doesn't mean there aren't thing you should never do. Maybe I'll never be a harpist, but I picked up the mandolin. Sure, I won't ever be a performing genius, but I'm learning something new.

It's also looking at everything which is in your life and questioning the presence of each thing that is there. Where did these come from - I mean really come from, not just the fact that they've been in my life forever. Why am I doing them? Should I continue to do them? In Brian Tracy's words "Knowing what you know now, would you start/continue this thing?"

It's hard letting go everywhere - at work, where delegation becomes a fact of life and at home, where perhaps things which have become as comfortable as a good set of sweatpants are moved on in our lives. But the benefits are seeming to outweigh the pain: less clutter (physically and psychically), a greater sense of choice about what one does, and the very real sense that one is using one's time in the very best way possible, doing the things that are really important.

Communication

Communication. The Killer.

The Killer, you ask? Isn't a lack of communication the dangerous condition? After all, if we are communicating, then in theory we are talking about the same things. It's only when people or countries or businesses fail to communicate that things can become difficult.

True in one sense - obviously if there is no communication at all, issues are not being addressed and problems are not being solved. Allowed to go long enough, a lack of communication will result in the destruction of whatever needs to be communicated about.

But communication can be a killer to.

Why? Because too often when we communicate we think we are discussing the same items and issues. We may use the same words, we may use the same concepts, we may even leave with goals and "to do" lists, yet we never actually communicated about the issues we thought we were discussing. In this scenario both parties leave the conversation thinking that the other understands their position and what needs to be done.

Then, suddenly, two days or two weeks or two months later, the parties look around and realize that the nothing they discussed came to fruition. "How can this be?" they ask. "We had meetings and project teams and minutes around this subject? We talked and made plans. We communicated."

"We communicated." Perhaps. We talked, at least. We assumed we had communicated. But did we really?

Communication, to be truly effective, needs not only to be done, but to be done thoroughly and to the point of understanding. Only then will our conversation of issues turn to communication about the issues.

Successful and Unsuccessful

The unsuccessful drives out the successful.

I got an e-mail from an old coworker yesterday about a visit he had yesterday from an agency. It was his first visist, especially after he revised their operations in the industry we both work in. The result: a very successful audit and a vindication of the work he put in to revising the systems.

I was happy for my coworker - in our field of work, one seldom gets a such a vindication that the changes and work does are successful. At the same time it made me shake my head: this individual used to work at the company I am at. He could have employed this same level of dedication and diligence and change to where he was.

But he left - not because he didn't try, not because of a lack of trying, but because the company simply did not want to hear what he had to say, or the fact that the one saying it was someone that they did not consider to be of appropriate rank.

And so he went - off to another company, where (apparently) he's doing quite well.

There are many reasons that people, companies or movements fail. But one of the most obvious is that they lose the ability to hear the truth, or they lose the ability to hear the truth and act on it. What it results in ultimately is not a stronger company because the hierarchy was preserved and the "systems" worked; what it results in is people of talent and drive taken their skills somewhere else to where they are valued. Such people will succeed and more often than not, the companies or movements they are involved with will succeed too.

And the unsuccessful? They'll sit in the corner, badmouthing those the left and declaring them "difficult to work with" or "uncaring" or "not a team player".

It's not that they're not a team player - it's just that they are playing for teams that want to win.

Finding a Calling

Do Callings call?

I'm wondering that because I'm still digesting through the backwash of my last year and my review. Simply put, the take away lesson was no matter how hard I work on tasks that keep daily operations going it is irrelevant: only so much as I do what others feel need to be done is there any method to success.

I cannot begin to relate how debilitating this has been to my work day. I am simply sapped of energy from before I leave the house until well after I arrive home. Work has become a grinding exercise in covering myself and slowing down to the point that I can be well assured I will not accomplish everything I know I will need to do - and in the knowing, I am even more dispirited.

But the most alarming thing happened yesterday as I was going about my business making copies to insert in a binder. I suddenly had the feeling that I was completely drained of my personality, myself: that I was little more than an extension of the company, that I was no longer myself.

The frightening thing was that I was too numb to care.

And that's why I ask: do callings call? I've no idea myself - I don't know if my brain if fried, but it simply cannot fathom the fact of doing something else other than what I do, even though I dislike what I do.

But I fear what another 2 years, let alone 20, of doing this will look like. Would I even recognize myself at the end, or will there simply be a shell, waiting for someone to tell it what to do?

What to Write?

Trying to find something to write about this morning. For some reason, the words are really not flowing.

At least not on electronic paper. They're swirling around in my head, of course - big words, portentous words, words that mean things, words that betray the inner workings of my soul.

That's one of the problems of writing in a format like this. Sometimes the problem is simply that I don't really have anything to write about. Other times is I have too much to write about, or at least too much that is too sensitive to write about.

Sensitive? Or painful? It's not as if I should be worried about how the information is received. The people I do know that read this will already know the issues; the people that don't know me personally would not recognize me from anyone else walking down the street with issues.

It's a different sort of sharing, I suppose - not the random sharing of Facebook where the passing events of the day are shared (as my pastor pointed out, most Facebook accounts are Life as we would like it, not life as we are), but the sharing at one or two levels below, the sharing of emotions and feelings and goals.

How much does one communicate to others (even the unknown readers on the Internet)? Does there ever come that moment when you've communicated too much? Or is it even really possible to those who are interested?

Words swirling around in my head, like the residual ground swirl in my coffee.

Goals versus Tasks

Goals versus tasks.

This concept has recently risen its head up in my life. I'm not quite sure what to do about it.

I understand the importance of goals. They give us things to work towards, things of value to ourselves. At the same time, "goals" do not account for a great deal of the day to day tasks that I (at least) have to accomplish. If I only worried about "goals", I would find myself quickly not accomplishing anything that I had to get done in the day.

Or do we rank goals over goals? If one goal is to accomplish something, but another is keep day to operations working, which goal is more important? And how do you present that argument to others? They look at the 20%; you do the 80% that needs doing.

I haven't quite figure out how to resolve this in my own mind. Goals without attention to tasks creates dreamers that never finish anything. Tasks without goals create dull daily slaves who never lift their eyes up from the ground.

How do I reconcile the two?

Communication

The howling wind and
rain and lightning speak clearly:
People not so much.

Stripped Away

This is the hard part. The part at which you realize you have erred -badly. The part at which you realize that you alone are responsible for your own errors, that there is nothing and no-one which they can be put upon.

One could make the argument that this is freeing in a way, that "we only see clearly through the lens of pain". Our excuses and our illusions are stripped away, our fantasies and appearances whirling into the maelstrom of reality, leaving only the reality of a situation for us to ponder and act upon. In some semi-mystical way which I don't fully apprehend, we must be deeply confronted before we will deep confront ourselves. For most of us, that can only occur through the painful application of the error and lessons learned.

The great challenge, of course, is remembering: remembering what we have learned when the pain is not so fresh, when the mistake has mellowed in our memory to that of a minor error, when we simply feel "okay" about things. Feeling okay and mellow are not crimes within themselves - so long as we do not forget.

For if we do, the experience is waiting for us around the corner yet again, hovering for the one error that will unleash the flood of self-realization and self-reflection until, at last, we finally learn that which we need.

Control

How much are we willing to make ourselves bear?

I've contemplated both the general day to day level of unhappiness I often feel in my life events and circumstances. As I was thinking on the issue, I suddenly realized that a great deal of what I endure are things which I pile on myself.

The reality is that there are a great many things that I cannot control in my life, in some cases things which greatly impact my day. For some reason I got the idea that if it does impact me, I should be able to control it.

Where this leads is down a road where one becomes bitter and angry because events, circumstances, people, etc. are never able to be controlled. I can't control others or how they act, I can't control (to a large part) the circumstances and events that come to me. But I think I should be able to, so I spend my time bearing around a weight of unhappiness because things aren't working the way they should. I become angry, bitter, and eventually hopeless.

Perhaps there is a better way - focus on the things I can control.

I can't control circumstances and events, but I can control how I react to them. I can't control people, but I can control how I react to them. And every circumstance or event, there are things I can control. I need to focus on those, and leave the others behind.

In a way that sounds silly as I write it. After all, the things I can't control are usually the more impactful on my life; the things I can control are the small things that don't seem to matter. But if I shed worry and anger by not worrying about that which I can't control, that makes the small things not so small at all.

And who knows - maybe by addressing the small things, the bigger things will make themselves available for addressing as well.

A Visit with Anger

Anger was waiting for me when I went for a walk last night.

I sighed as I saw him at the end of the court, but was resigned to the fact because my choices were either turn back and disappoint Syrah the Mighty in her walk or carry on and have the companion I was not expecting.

"I see you're walking early tonight" he said pleasantly enough as I turned the corner with Syrah sniffing along the edges of the sidewalk for past visitors.

"Getting it out of the way early" I responded. "What brings you out?"

He laughed to himself gently, at a joke I could not here. "What brings me out? Have you listened to yourself lately? It's not 'What brings me out?' - it's 'Why haven't I come out before now?'"

I sighed as we turned yet another corner and headed east. "Okay, I'll admit I've been a little frustrated of late." At Anger's snicker, I inserted "Fine. A lot frustrated at late. But it's not like I can just start ranting and raving at people."

"Oh, I know" said Anger. "That's why the alternative is so much more fun - to have you mumbling under your breath, to have you screaming in your mind. It's lots more entertaining than you just letting loose on people."

I spun to look at him. "That's not fair. It's not as if I can just start speaking my mind. You know that words, once loosed, cannot be recalled."

Anger was smug. "Oh, don't I know it. But I'm patient - you'll slip up sometimes soon, saying something to someone you'll regret too late. You're so angry all the time now - it's only a matter of playing the odds.

I stopped dead in the street. Anger started to walk past me, then waited, looking at me quizzically.

"What if I just stopped?"

"Stopped?"

"Yes, stopped. Just stopped being angry altogether. If I'm not angry, I'm not going to slip up - right?"

Anger looked at me like I was crazy for a moment, then stuttered. "S-stopped? But you can't stop. You've many frustrations in your life - and you can do nothing about them. Anger is the one emotion you have that will propel you to do anything at all. Those are your choices, you know - be angry and talk some kind of action, even if it's bad, or be accepting and do nothing. People that have accepted are people that do not accomplish."

I looked straight at him. "But can't I accept and take action on those things that I can take action on? That's taking action - maybe not on so many things and maybe not as successfully, but at least on things that maybe I can change."

I thought again. "You know, most of things I am angry at right now are things I can't change - people, circumstances, that sort of thing. Can't really do anything about those. But there are things - maybe small, but things - that I can do. Maybe I'll start with those and go from there."

I smiled at Anger again, still standing there in the street. "Syrah's pulling the leash, so I've got to go. Thanks for the walk. Maybe we can make a date of it?"

And with that I dragged off down the street following a dog intent on the scent of something, Anger still standing in the sodium lighting of the street looking for all the world as if something had just hit him.

Work Dream

I had a dream about starting a business last night. It was the strangest thing.

It was all the stranger for who was involved ( a cousin of mine whom I used to work for but haven't seen in years) and where it was (originally the old convenience store I worked in, but then a warehouse) and what it was (my current industry).

I suddenly "wake up" in my dream to find myself in what was obviously a manufacturing facility, which apparently was an extension of the convenience store I worked at in college for my cousin. The floor was not up to manufacturing requirements, but the sense was definitely that it was on its way. I went into one room, where Fear Beag was working on some piece of equipment (presumably for fermentation or milling or some such), where we talked for a few minutes about how it was going, then went out through a door which lead into a fairly large, empty warehouse.

In the warehouse were Fear Mor and An T-Saor, who were engaged in the process of assembling some sort of environmental units. I asked some random question, and An T-Saor pointed up to the back wall where he was assembling something. I left both of them working on the equipment as I walked through the rest of the facility which was essentially a shell with basic rooms.

I remember three thoughts as I woke up. The first was that whatever this was, it was a work in process and for some reason I was not entirely worried about the money. The second thought was that there was a real sense that success was here: that the four of us had found a niche in manufacturing that was small, desirable, and could be done by ourselves. The third - directly related to the second - was the sense that this was right, that this was going to succeed, and that I was enjoying myself doing something I apparently liked with people I liked.

It was a trio of delicious thoughts that followed me into waking up. Seldom - and surely not in the last 7 years - have I had such a dream about work that left me refreshed and ready to get up in the morning.

RIP

"Sic transit gloria mundi" (Thus passes the glory of this world) - Thomas A' Kempis

My parents called last night to let me know one of the guys I went to school with - Kindergarten through 8th and high school - passed away this week.

An odd thing. Someone I don't think I had spoken to for at least 20 years. At one time (in grammar school) we were great friends. In a small school with 25 kids in your class, you tended to be friends with everyone and passed through the years together. There was, in that day, not quite the separation that seems to occur now between children and their activities. We did sports or Scouts or 4-H - but not the exclusion of seeing each other at school and participating in each other's lives.

We began to lose touch after high school, that wonderful time when children begin to flex their wings and find their own way. We went different paths - and in a much larger school, different paths means little if any contact. After the great "hurrah" of graduation, things drifted apart even more quickly. The last time I remember seeing him was at about 23, when I went over with another friend to his apartment. After that, the nothing of two busy lives.

And now, suddenly, he's gone.

I'm not quite sure how to process it. There's a vague sort of grief - certainly a sadness for his family - but not the sense you would find of a close friend; after all, one announcement does not make up for 20 years of silence. At the same time he's my age. The hint of mortality nicks at one's mind as the thoughts roil through.

It certainly puts the things of the day - projects that must be completed, deadlines that are "critical" - in perspective. Death is that one great appointment on our calender - unknown to most of us - that we will not miss, yet strangely never blocks itself out on the Outlook calendars of our digital age.

My greatest memory? Being at his house, playing electric football: lining up the players, the quarterback with the cotton football, and then throwing the switch and hearing the horrid "buzz" of the motor and watching the players bounce all over the "field" in what was supposed to be an approximation of a football play.

Requiscat in Pace.

The Complicators

I've got another in my list of people types that prevent useful work from getting done: The Complicators.

Complicators can be a version of The Assigners as they share some of the same characteristics: they are known for giving work away that they don't or won't do themselves, and they certainly are not always useful in getting additional resources. The difference is that when Assigners are done with their damage, they at least go away; Complicators do not.

They hover; they yell. They make commitments to what they will do, then after it is done the renege on their consent - in some cases, they even don't remember that they agreed to it in the first place. They believe in the quality adage "Inspect what you expect", but fail to recall that they failed to communicate their expectations in the first place. They bend rules they tell others are inviolate if the circumstances require it, yet hold they standard for everyone else. On the road of meeting requirements and accomplishing tasks, they are the quicksand.

I continue to be amazed how corporations and companies which otherwise proclaim their wanting to succeed and do good often show myopia about the individuals who truly move things forward in their companies - and the individuals who do not.

Learning From Last Year

Jeffrey Gitomer - A business speaker and author whom I've read and enjoy - posted an article today about learning lessons from last year - not just that we boldly go forward into the New Year, but that we consider what has happened in the last year, rate them, and what lesson we learned from each of them.

It's a good idea - a great idea actually, coming from someone who is becoming more and more haunted by the fact that I continue to be stuck in the same place.

As I look back over my planners (I have them going back to 2003), what I realize is that most - or all - of the goals I continue to carry forward are the ones that I have had from year's past. In fact, with a few exceptions, if you looked at my earlier goals, you'd really wonder what year they came from.

Perhaps this one fact, more than any other, explains the feeling I've had of late that in a great many ways, my life is stuck on a treadmill, not really moving ahead but very slowly, almost imperceptibly, falling behind.

Great. So what am I going to do about it?

Two things. The first (which I can't do until I get back home from the audit) is to review 2011 in detail by what was intended, what was accomplished, and everything else that happened. It won't be a perfect review, but it will at least give me a sense of what did (or didn't happen).

The second thing I've actually started at work and will start for my personal life as well is a mistake log.

A mistake log? A simple worksheet with four columns: the date, what happened, the root cause of why it happened, and what I will do to correct it. It's a simplified version of a process that I use every day.

Is it working? I've already got three errors in it, three things that I actually always had issues with but have now recorded to remind myself not to do again.

Sometimes it's not that we lack the knowledge we need, it's that we fail to force ourselves to use it.

Results and Roses

The man who wants a garden fair,

Or small, or very big,

With flowers growing here and there

Must bend his back and dig.

The things are mighty few on earth

That wishes can attain.

What e'er we want of any worth

We've got to work to gain

It matters not what goal you seek,

It's secret here reposes.

You've got to dig from week to week

To get results or roses.

- Edward Guest (1881-1959)

Friday Morning

I sit looking out the window this morning on a cold Friday. The earlier glories of the sunrise I could see between the rooftops and the tree lines - a deep, almost scarlet red - has been displaced by the more orange-gold glow of the sun. If I angle my head just so, I can see one shaft of twinkling light hit my eye.

The sun has shed its reflective light on the clouds that are overhead. They are wispy white things, small in number with one lower gray twisted cloud that lays across half the sky like a snake. Unlike many of the clouds I've seen in my time here, these clouds do not seem to be in a particular hurry to go anywhere and are contented in hanging in the early morning light, as if to soak up as much heat as they can before they move on their way.

The yard below me is still in the dusky greens and browns of the pre-morning. The oaks have shed most of their leaves and are standing as bare sentinels in the yard over the profuse growth of greenery which magically appeared in the yard after our summer of drought when the rains came. Other than clover and the occasional grass blade, I could not give a name to the profusion of low lying plants in the yard. Both trees and grass seem to be yearning for the sunlight as well as if to prepare themselves for the colder night to come this evening.

Simple things: Light, trees, sky, clouds, plants. But they are here every day, ready for my eye to take note of the beauty that is literally in my own back yard.

The light is brightening now and the colors become more distinct. It is time for me to slip away from this window and backyard to continue its quiet, patient job of simply being.

Night Watch

Winter's midnight watch,

trees dance in leaf-whipped fervor:

cold front blowing in.

The Drain

I constantly am surprised (I don't really know why) how much work crowds the rest of my life out.

I make my goals at the beginning of the year, carefully crafting each for a particular aspect of my life. I make my daily task list, so that I can insure that things that are important to me get done on a daily basis. I try to include in my reading something which will inspire me towards greater efforts.

And then work happens.

It surprises me how much work can drain out of your life. By the time I get home, more often than not, I am beaten. The energy which one had hoped to pour into every other aspect of one's life has been routed into work, leaving the pickings for one's spirit to try and motivate.

No matter how hard I try, no matter how much I aspire to do otherwise, this is the way it always seems to be.

Is the problem with my work - that I simply expect too much out of the thing that supports myself and An Teaglach? Or is it that I expect too little out of myself - or too much? Am I fool to set so many aspirations and goals, only to see them constantly crash against the rocks of my employ?

I am confused - how do I correct this imbalance within my life?

The Blinding Flash

There comes a tipping point multiple point in our lives.

It's that tipping point when we realize something about ourselves, or remember it. It occurs when we suddenly find or discover something about ourselves - something that comes in the flash of an instant and then just sits there in the light of self discovery.

We have to rediscover it because most of use (okay, let's just say me) consistently have to be awakened from the slumber that we mentally and spiritually put ourselves into. We say we want one thing, but after a while we convince ourselves that we are really content with less than was what we wanted. We can continue like this for a while - sometimes years - but something will happen and that original desire floats to the surface. It's at that moment - the moment of self realization - that we are suddenly confronted by the gap between what we want and what we have settled for.

What do we do with that gap?

Typically one of two things, never correct. The first is that we tend to bury those feelings beneath the casing of duty - which just moves them down the road, where they erupt with greater intensity. The second is that we suddenly "freak out" and immediately follow our desires without thinking. This, too, seldom ends well.

Am I saying do nothing? Not at all - because (as I've learned to my pain) doing nothing makes nothing go away, it just compounds the issue for later. Nor am I saying immediately act on every desire and feeling. That's the act of an adolescent, and most of us seldom have the time or resources to remake a life the way a 17 year old does.

What I am saying is to act - but act with wisdom. It's not denying that those desires do not exist - indeed, unless addressed they will continue to come to the surface and create anxiety and anger in our lives, which is not wise. It's admitting that they exist and then saying "How can I incorporate these in my life in such a way that the disruption is minimized?"

It's the least easy of the three courses of action. But it stands as the only course of action that will produce the results of the desire that we cherish so greatly - and having integrated that one moment of self discovery, we can move on to find others hidden still more deeply.

The Crow and the Cormorant

Once upon a time there was a crow.

The crow was along river one day getting a drink when he noticed a black cormorant floating in the stream. The cormorant would effortlessly glide along, then suddenly dive down and come up with a tasty morsel of some kind, which it extended its beak and long neck to swallow. It would then continue on its effortless glide through the water, until it climbed out of the water to stand on a rock and hold its dark wings out to the side to dry them.

"How beautiful" said the crow. "It's so different from my life. I have to constantly fly around seeking insects and rice grains from the fields, constantly in threat from farmers and cats and bigger birds."

He looked down at himself. "I'm a black bird too!" he suddenly realized. "There's not a reason in the world why I, too, cannot become a cormorant."

So decided, he hopped off his rock perch and jumped into the river, expecting to settle along the top just like the cormorant. Instead, to his surprise, he sank like a rock. He struggled to keep his beak above the water, and barely managed to keep it up as the current of the river washed him ashore none too kindly. He sputtered and shook himself as he crawled back onto the rocks, wet and bedraggled and surely lacking the fish he had seen the cormorant catch and eat with ease. Suddenly he realized that his wet feathers would prevent him from flying if danger approached - and he certainly couldn't swim. He slunk to the edge of the river, hoping the warm sun would quickly dry his feathers.

Crows, he realized, were made to fly high and be clever and dodge farmers and cats and other birds and collect rice and insects - which suddenly sounded like a feast to him. They were never meant to swim.

U no mane suru karasu (The crow imitating the cormorant) - Japanese Proverb

"A crow imitating a cormorant cannot swim, and so will nearly drown. In the same way, every man should be true to his own craft or, in swordsmanship, his own talents and training. Musashi would have us be the cormorant if we are the cormorant, and the crow if we are the crow." - William Scott Wilson, The Lone Samurai: The Life of Miyamoto Musashi

Morning Surprise

Coffee cup in hand:

Pumpkin wafts up from my cup:

Autumn in Winter.

Trapped!

Why does business waste so much time in meetings instead of accomplishing?

I have been trapped in more meetings than I care to admit in which the point of the meeting was accomplished (or could have been accomplished) in 10 minutes - but the meeting had to run another 50 because a) the sense is a short meeting is not a successful meetings; and b) meetings are more about individuals being heard and showing themselves as important as it is about actually solving issues.

The reality is that too many work environments, work is seen as something which is as much about catering to the egos of individuals as it is the accomplishing of actually work - and the vehicle for this is the meeting, where individuals get to demonstrate their worth in front of higher ranked individuals by talking about how much they know or "demonstrating" their decision making abilities. The result? More meetings where less and less gets done, where people begin to find reasons not to go because it represents valuable time which is being poured down the drain for the purpose of making people feel important.

Meetings have a place - as long as they have a purpose. And the purpose is not and should never be "To make someone feel important" or "To show we're doing something". Work is for work, not the building up of or catering to egos. And if something needs to be done - do it. Don't have a meeting where no-one is accomplishing anything on the task because we have to talk about the task.

I would love to see meetings start out with following mantras:

1) What decisions are we here to make? Here's the list.

2) We are here to make those decisions. We are not here to make anyone feel important or better about themselves.

3) When we have made these decisions and assigned action items, we will leave.

Will this stop pointless meetings? I'm afraid not - too many people are wedded to the meeting as a way to self-validate their importance and self justify their position. But there is a chance that at least one other person will see what you're trying to do - and be grateful.

Perhaps they'll celebrate by having one less meeting.

The Tyranny of the Assigners

I am coming to greatly resent those who Assign.

I don't mind those who are Assigners yet work. They are fellow workers in the trenches, not only setting the policies of the future but willing to work alongside to execute them. They make the decisions -but then crawl down to the ground to make them happen.

No, what I am speaking of this morning are the Assigners who do nothing but assign. Those who create work without any thought as to how it will be executed. Those who create empires only to assign the work to others, while they "oversee" the work, while they "project manage" tasks that they have no idea how to complete themselves.

You can recognize them by their habits: building teams only to assign work, or just being by themselves, always finding ways to assign the critical tasks to others. Not informed of the projects they manage, they constantly seek updates and offer their assistance to "do what it takes" to get the task done - yet too often when assistance or resources are sought, they suddenly find themselves unable to negotiate to get such things.

But they have no problem negotiated the tasks down - indeed, they can often become benign (or not so benign) despots, constantly seeking updates and putting pressure about why things are not accomplished more quickly while scarcely paying attention to the other ongoing tasks which need to be accomplished.

If there is success, too often they take credit; if there is failure, too often they redirect the blame.

In my more idle moments I wonder to what extent resources and time are wasted (yes, I use the term advisedly) on people who make tasks and "assign" things yet don't really do any work - and why so many organizations don't see such things more clearly.

Sleep: An Act of Faith

Sleep is an act of faith.

Oh sure, I know it's a physical necessity and if we don't have it, our functionality drops off dramatically (The Romans supposedly killed the last king of Macedon, Perseus, by denying him sleep for a year). And there have been long scientific discussions about what the real purpose of sleep is, and do we need it, and could we do without (some can: one teacher I had could function well on 3 hours a night).

But sleep is an act of faith as well.

To sleep means that we are letting things out of our grasp. When we sleep, we can actually do nothing at all - except dream, and rebuild our cells. All our plans, our goals, our worries which we work on find our effort on them completely denied as we lapse into unconsciousness.

Some of us (me, for example) fight back by denying ourselves of sleep. We figure out ways to cram more into our days - mostly at the cost of sleep. 8 hours goes to 7, then 6, then we are trying to see how long we can go at 5. The fact that we stumble through the day as zombies and by Thursday are unable to really generate excitement about anything or that we sleep 10 hours a day on the weekends seems to mean nothing.

But in the end, do we accomplish that much?

I'm confronted with this myself. One of my resolutions is to get more sleep. At first I thought this would be an easy exercise: after all, I have no problems sleeping over the weekends. So into bed I go - and wake up. At 12:00, 2:00, 4:15, and 5:10. Each time I have to consciously lay there and decide I will not let my mind get agitated or active, that I will go to sleep, that waking and going will not really solve anything.

By adding sleep, I am surrendering control. I am choosing to act on the premise that sleep in more important than whatever "activity" I would be doing.

And an act of faith? By choosing to sleep, by forcing myself to do so, I am essentially admitting to God that I am finite - and He is not. He can accomplish all that He wants or needs me to do with my sleep or waking. "It is vain" says the Psalmist "That you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to His beloved sleep" (Psalm 127:2).

So tonight will find me like last night, undoubtedly popping awake for what I could being doing - and then, in a supreme act of faith in the providence and omnipotence of God, closing my eyes and going back to sleep.

Goal Setting

Confession: I've never been very good at setting goals.

I'd like to think I'm better. Every year, I start out with the best of intentions: things I think I want (or need) to accomplish, which I interpret as goals. And then, at the end of every year, I tend to look back, wondering which (if any of them) I accomplished and where the year went anyway. So last night, as I sat trying to work over my 2012 goals with varying results - mostly "What am I trying to really accomplish?" - I started going through my collection of books that deal with subject.

Enter Goal Setting 101 by Gary Ryan Blair. It's a short pamphlet really - 40 pages or so - but actually quite as useful as books three times its length. Mr. Blair has a short and succinct definition of a goal, something that works well for my simple way of working. A goal is defined as "An end toward which you direct specific effort" and consists of:

1) An accomplishment to be achieved.

2) A measurable outcome.

3) A specific data and time to accomplish the goal.

That's it. And that's pretty easy.

It took me a bit of time to adjust myself to writing them in the fashion. I'm used to doing them more in the form of what I'd like to do, not as a specific 3 step outcome. But what I found as I continued down this path is that things started to be put in a fashion and sense that I could understand. I not only identified what I wanted to do (I always seemed to do that), but also what that would actually look like (the outcome) and what time frame I wanted to accomplish it in.

I'm starting small this year doing this process (another issue I have, a separate one, is maybe trying to put too many things on my plate). And I've today to work on the ones that were not so easy for me to do last night, the ones that are either more personal or have greater implications.

Still, at least for this moment, I begin the year feeling more confident that I will see some of the results of the end of the year I want to - more confident than I have in years.