Love a Job?

What is like to have a job you truly love?

I was sent into a spin of thought-provoking despondency this week by overhearing the conversation of two individuals.  One was relating to a third party "When I saw Violet at the bar I gave her a hug and said 'How do you like your new job?' Her response was 'I love it!'  My response to her was 'I love my new job too!'"

This has provoked one of those nagging thoughts which has dogged my thinking for the rest of the weekend.

Have I done jobs I loved?  Sure.  The Firm was one - although financially fraught with peril (and consequences), I loved doing the research and crunching the numbers and presenting datq.  The Music Group was another - paid virtually nothing, but I covered costs and had an excuse to sing and play and learn the obscure languages I love.  Teaching perhaps - certainly the reading and the preparation of the lectures, if not so much the presentation of them.

If I look at the connecting factors in these, they 1)  Involved doing reading and researching; 2) Leveraged my interest in something I already liked; and 3) Paid terribly.  1 and 2 are alright; 3 becomes a bit difficult to swallow in a society that requires cash for a living.

I think the thing I remember most about all of those - the thing that  I miss now - is that I got out of bed excited to start to work.  Even in the case of teaching and music, where I had another job to support them, I still got up thinking "I get to do this today!  Great!".  

Was there a sense of doing good?  Possibly - maybe not in the more "direct" way I should be feeling it now, but there was at least a sense that somehow, somewhere I was contributing positively to the lives of others.

I understand that jobs which are loved are few and far between, and many have to endure that which they do not love simply because a job is, for most, a necessity.  But I equally understand that jobs that are endured inevitably eat their way into the fibers of being, replacing enthusiasm for anything or the zest to succeed with the dull retort of "I have to". 

And given long enough, "have to" becomes signature phrase of the intellectual and emotional walking dead.

Plans?

Does God move our plans forward, or do our plans move forward when they agree with His?

I've been struggling to make progress with this thought as I look through my life, especially now at the moment of putting down more roots in New Home.  Purchasing a house has brought this  thought to the fore as well, as reviewing the selling documents brings to mind the series of events that brought us here, which things brings up the series of events which brought us to that point.  So often, my life seems like a series of random accidents to which I responded, perhaps without always thinking as well as I should of.

But plans.  I had them. I have them.  I'm sure most people do.  We'd like to believe that God puts these plans into our heads and hearts so that we can execute them.  We read "Commit your work to the Lord, and He will establish your plans" in Proverbs 16:3 or 1 John 5:14  "Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us." (and yes, before you comment, I do realize this verse is not a promise to just receive every prayer we ask.). 

So we do it.  We pray and plan and study God's word and talk to people and gather data and try to move forward on these plans.  And, at least seemingly for me, they seem to go precisely nowhere.

Have plans that I made moved forward?  Sometimes.  Sometimes I think God let them move forward in spite of the fact they were silly or stupid or (occasionally) downright dangerous because He wanted to teach me the folly of thinking I knew it all.

But what about the good ones that go nowhere, the honorable and noble ones, the ones that (it seems like) really represent something God would approve of?  How do we reconcile that those don't go anywhere when our lives too often seemed trapped in things of little value and impact?

I suppose that comes down to the point of making the argument about what God's will is.  There's been plenty of ink spilled about it over the centuries.  And unless one is of the type who believe God still speaks (which He does to me occasionally, but never audibly and never in such direct terms) you'll find yourself trying to chase a will-o-the-wisp you can never catch.  Some things we can know, of course - He put them down in the Bible - but there are just as many things that we can't know.  I sometimes wonder if these are the things that He often makes those kinds of decisions on - yes, He states what He would like to us to do, but He keeps His own counsel on what is in His heart.  This perhaps we can only know by His blessing after the fact, or in Heaven itself.

Which probably gets back to the point I often find myself returning to:  is it that (once again) I've managed to ignore what He's really asking of me in order to find my justification for what I want? 

Changing Up

This morning I opened my blogging account only to discover that the website that hosts my blog (that would be Blogger.com, also known as Google) has helpfully changed the entire interface of the system.  It was one of those visual shocks where the screen portrays something that you haven't the least idea what it is, like watching a childhood movie you remember and suddenly seeing things you have absolutely no memory of.

I'm not really sure why companies feel the need to do things like this.

Does it look like there are more features?  I think so, judging by the parts ribbon at the top of my post right now and the plethora of options which greeted me when I logged into my account.  Do these features make my life somehow better or help me in my quest to improve my writing and my ability to get my thoughts down on paper?  I don't think so.

(Note to self:  as you continue to type into the box of text and reach the size limit, the box helpfully expands on its own instead of you having to scroll up and down.  It's useful - but slightly disconcerting).

The thought that always leaps to mind when things like this happen is "why?"  Was there a crushing need to improve the interface by users?  Or (as I suspect) is it more of an issue that programmers, like inventors throughout the ages, always feel the need to tinker with creations to make them "better" in their eyes - regardless of whether or not anyone has asked for it.

It's certainly not the end of the world, and I'm sure I'll learn to drive my way around this eventually as well as I did the previous version (e.g. what't the bare minimum I have to know to make an entry).  It's just one of those slightly off kilter events that leaves one concentrating more on the medium and how to work it rather than the actual words themselves - which, really, is the point of any blog.

Now, if I can just figure out how to post this....

Holding Down the Fort

So the bad news: I seem to in the midst of another depressive mood. And the good news: it seems to be almost 6 weeks since the last depression that I have had.

This, as they say, is progress.

It feels like I'm banging off walls in every aspect of my life: professional, personal. Even physical: this chest thing I seem to have acquired somewhere is just annoying enough that it keeps me from really exercising (or really sleeping well) but is not severe enough to really be "sick" - thereby ensuring I neither exercise nor truly rest.

It's as if (to use Bilbo Baggin's terms) I'm too little butter being spread across too much toast, feeling thin and stretched.

The thing that seems to be nagging at me today is the sameness of everything. It's as if I keep looking for something to happen or change, yet nothing seems to be ready to do so - or even gives a hint that it ever will.

Has it always been this way? I think back to 20+ years ago, having gotten out of graduate school with no real idea of what I was doing to do. There was change; indeed, the first three years of my post-school life were full of it: marriage, moving, music, 3 different career types. Even when I fell into my current field, there still seemed to be changes: learning new things, learning new industries, moving from company to company to learn and grow, even a bevy of new activities on my off hours.

And now, none of that seems operative.

Brian Tracy, I suppose, would tell me to get a vision of my ideal life and start working on it. The problem is even if I really knew what that is, any change of that magnitude - indeed, any change at all - seems light years from where I am today.

It's almost the mentality of holding down the fort because that's your task in life. The problem is that holding down the fort means that the ability to do anything else, or even the hope of doing something else, is put on hold because you have to stay in one place.

In all military histories, garrison duty was considered the most boring and least likely to produce any promotion or change. Garrison duty in life seems no different.

Of All The Gin Joints in All the World...

As part of the ongoing Home Quest 2012, the mortgage broker keeps asking for a little information more. Gone are the days of wild figures and limited paperwork: now, everything is to be triple checked and cross referenced. Yesterday's request: the 2009 tax returns and documentation relating to the sale of our house in Old Home.

In digging through the documents and trying to find anything relating to the sale which accompanied our move to New Home, I suddenly found myself awash in a sea of depression and regret. Every bad memory around the house, every failure I ever managed to do - not only in regard to the house and The Firm but elsewhere in my life - came bubbling to top, reflecting the paperwork that was scattered across the bed as I continued to search for documents.

The past, it seems, never really goes away.

But upon later reflection (mostly at night, after a low day) I realized that saying is only partially right. While it is true that the past never goes away and is therefore available to rise up when we least expect it, it is not true to say that the past has power. The past, in fact, is powerless.

The past can do nothing to me without my acknowledgement and acceptance. It's like the video or DVD we keep next to the TV: I can replay it, but it is only a record of what has happened, not the event itself. Any power it has to harm, any strength it has to distress, comes only from my willingness to grant it, the same way I become concerned for actors of whom I know nothing and have no relation except through the power of acting.

But in one way the past does have power, if we choose to use it: the power to learn.

The past is a learning center of our lives where, like the aforementioned DVD, we can reflect and review the events of our lives - what worked, what didn't - without the risk of trying out something "new" in our current life state. In truth, most of what we face now we have faced in the past; we need only review our lives to see where it happened, what we did, and how it came out.

(A small plug here for the importance of History, both for our education system and as a personal source of learning. Just as we have probably done it before and failed to learn, so have other individuals and other civilizations).

So yes, of all the gin joints in all the world, my past wandered in yesterday. Fortunately, after freaking out about it and being a bit depressed, I invited him up to the bar for a drink. It seems, after asking, he has a few stories to share with me...

Not Forgotten

Nighean bhan has been asking to put fish in her tank for a few weeks now, and yesterday was finally the day to do it. We got into the Trusty White Protege and headed out.

To get to the next turnoff is merely the act of getting on and off by staying in the exit lane. I've missed that exit many times - and, New Home being New Home, if I miss it I have to go down another mile to turn around and get back. Therefore I was paying complete attention to what I was doing and where I needed to be.

As we came off the freeway (exiting at freeway speeds, of course) I looked up ahead. To my consternation, I saw a red Volkswagen turning out from a nearby store and into the road. As was watching out of my right vision, it seemed that they were not just turning and getting into the middle of three lanes but seemed intent on moving into the far left lane.

My lane.

It's at moments like these that I'm grateful I grew up at a time where Driver's Education was still real and in a small town where you learn to do things that you might not learn to do in a city. I hit the brakes hard and, as the VW continued to turn in and then (realizing I was there) moved back out (seemingly at sub-light speed), made a soft left and went up and over the small curb and into a median of native grasses and wild flowers.

I came to a stop and just sat there for a moment, nerves jangling. The traffic was not too bad (being Sunday and all), so I was able to get the car moving and over to a lane where the VW had pulled in.

A very nice young lady and her boyfriend got out as we checked on each other, then made conversation as I crawled around the bottom of the car to look. Tires looked low but good - they were probably low anyway - and there was no leaking that I could see. We exchanged information, then they drove away and we, trailing bits of grass and flower petals, headed on to buy a fish.

After we got back home, fish in hand (a blue betta, name undetermined at this time), I sat there shaken for a while. It's been a long time that I have had so near a miss moving so fast. I went back and forth about cause - should I have stayed on the surface road, should they have stayed in the center lane - but that's all in the past now and probably irrelevant. All were safe, the cars are okay. Carry on.

What it did make think about was the very real presence of God in my life.

I often feel - well, not forgotten, but maybe mostly out of mind - by God. The things that I have always thought were important (mostly to me, to be fair) never really seem to work out the way I hope for. The life I would like, doing the things I would like, seems to constantly evade my grasp like tadpoles in a spring pond. It's a fairly selfish view as I sit and think about it - judging the attention of God as if he were a genie and wish fulfillment was the Key Performance Indicator - but I suspect I'm far from the only one.

And then something like this happens, something that could have ended very badly instead (and hopefully) somewhat amusingly - I can imagine what the drivers whizzing by thought of my Trusty White Protege in a cloud of pollen and petals. One could make the argument that it was almost as a hand had gone between the two cars and guided mine up onto the median, making sure to give it a short lift on the way over the curb.

And there are so many other little things: the fact that the tires were not completely full and so did not burst; the fact that there were no handy sharp object in the grass to puncture my tires, the fact that no harm seems to have befallen the car; that I did not take The Ravishing Mrs. TB's car (which, being lower, surely would not have survived unscathed); the fact that it was Sunday and that incident any other day of the week would not have ended as well.

And the big one, of course: that no-one was injured.

It was an excellent - and for me, a very timely - reminder that just because we don't see God working on what we think is important doesn't mean that He has stopped working and caring for us. And, more importantly, that He has not - and will not - ever forget us.

Even in the simple act of getting into a car for a fish.

Starting The Day: A Lifelong Habit

Once upon a time I was not a morning person. Through my teenage and college years, I'd sleep in until I absolutely had to get out bed in the morning, then rush around as quickly as possible. This habit moved itself into the post-graduate years as working early and taking classes late meant morning was a time to get up and get ready and go.

But after I married and began to work early mornings, I began to discover the power of the morning. It started simply enough - Study a Latin Lesson and read some Scripture as I hurried down breakfast before running out the door - but over time I found that I was actually making progress in something that I enjoyed while I worked as I had to.

Over the years with a series of long commutes and early risings, time became more and more precious. Suddenly getting it up a little earlier in the morning was not just something I did because I moved slowly, it was something that allowed me to extend my day into the areas that I wanted to do but couldn't because of work.

Scheduling is everything; you could make the argument it has taken me 22 years to get to the point that I am maximizing my time while maintaining some degree of flexibility in what I do. But with the scheduling comes the power to do the things that I like to do, to "squeeze out" the maximum amount of usefulness in the time I am granted.

Is my schedule subject to change? Sure it is. I'm always seeking to find ways to get a little more time in the morning as there are others things I'd like to do (maybe another language, time to garden in the cool of the morning, a regular morning time for writing, or even the beginning of a new activity) or even extend the time for things I do now (a longer workout or more time for reading). I could need to be to work later or change my commute to a far shorter one. Either way, I've got a structure build on now.

Starting the Day can either make or break the rest of the day. The odd thing is that much of Starting The Day remains in our power to control.

Starting The Day: Reading

What is the thing that can keep me on focus during the day, especially days when I feel completely off course? What can give me the power to visualize a possibility in the midst of day of drudgery? Reading.

Reading - specifically, reading for success - is for me the secret sauce that keeps me focused and going during the day. It is very hard for me to visualize moving forward in any aspect of my life without motivational reading, something to spur me on to success.

My reading is divided into two parts:

1) Spiritual: For me, the Scriptures. I've read "Through the Bible in a year" for many years now, where the Old Testament and New Testament is broken down into 366 segments. Mornings are my time for the New Testament, followed by a reading in Proverbs for the Date (31 days, 31 books). I also try to included a devotional reading as well: sometimes theology, sometimes biography, sometimes a true devotional reading.

The point? This keeps me grounded in what is actually important and what the purpose of life really is - and that no matter how much I flatter myself, I am not truly in control.

2) Motivational: For me, this varies tremendously. I've read The Art of War by Sun Tzu many times. I've read books by motivational writers: Brian Tracy, Jeffrey Gitomer, Orison Swett Marden. I've read books on success in writing and publishing. I've read books about businesses and business models that I admire, such as Raising the Bar by the founder of Clif Bars.

The point of this variety in book choices is that it helps to keep focused on things that my day to day existence tends to wipe clean. Things like self improvement, visions of things I want to do, stories of people who have done the things I want to do - all of these keep me looking towards the horizon of the future. I am very forgetful and easily distracted by life. I need these readings as a touchstone for what is possible.

I literally cannot imagine a morning without this kind of reading any more - to me, it would be as foreign as to start out the day without a cup of coffee. If I don't do this sort of reading for two or three days I can feel it: my world becomes shrunken and shuttered by the musts and have to's of my existence.

So read every morning. It's not just good for the mind, it's good for the soul.

Starting The Day: Have a Plan

So now I've gotten enough sleep. The reality is that even with the sleep, the day is still there and ready to have a crack at me. And the second reality is that unchecked, the day will overrun any good intentions I have to accomplish anything.

That's why I need a plan.

My morning is remarkably - almost frighteningly - planned out for me by me. Is it written down anywhere? No, of course not - even I'm not that OCD (yet, anyway). But it tends to always be the same, on the same schedule.

After rising, I pray and read my morning Scripture and the Proverbs chapter for the date (31 chapters, 31 days) and work on my memorization (currently working through Titus) and usually read a devotional text. Then I do my language portion: some Old Testament Greek, some Old English (I never anticipate becoming fluent, of course, but a reading knowledge would be nice). After this, lately I have been reading some motivational books (that will be in tomorrow's post).

After this, Physical Training and exercise. I've been trying - not always successfully to alternate running (MWF) and weight training (TTHS). The timing here is a bit off sometimes: if I'm on my game, I'm out the door to run or in to lift by 0535; if not, as late as 0550. A little flexibility in one's schedule is never a bad thing. The going is the important thing.

When I'm back, it's rabbit and hamster time. I try not to rush this more than I have to - the rabbits (and hamsters) appreciate the attention, and it really is one of the more important things I do during the day.

After finishing with the animals, it's usually off to the computer to check my e-mail and post my quotes on the locations where they exist on the Internet. I don't do my blogging at this point, but instead return to the couch to practice Japanese and eat breakfast.

Following breakfast, it's on to writing (just like today). The time it takes varies greatly - sometimes the words flow and I'm easily completed (I try to average 500-600 words a post), sometimes they drag and it takes a lot longer. However, usually by 0730 the work is done.

And then? Loose time before I shower. Make lunch, perhaps check a few websites I frequent, maybe practice Iaido for a few minutes. It's largely dependent on how long it has taken me to do everything else - and what I feel like.

Is my schedule cast in stone? Not at all. Sometimes I oversleep. Sometimes the weather outside is frightful and running sounds cold, or reading takes more time than I anticipated, or the bunnies want a bit more love. The important thing is that I get up every morning not having to start with a sense of "What do I need to do?" but rather a guided plan of what I should be doing. By the time I'm in the car on my way to work, I've accomplished many of the things that are important to me personally - which matters when your time is limited and you don't feel you are really doing that which you love to do.

Try it yourself. Pick five things to do in the morning. They don't have to be mine - you have your own interests. But plan your day from when you rise and find out if, by the time you're done, you don't have a sense of making something happen in your life before you walk out the door.

Starting The Day: Sleep

Starting the day correctly starts the night before. With Sleep.

I am not a sleep expert and have not significantly studied the science of physiology and sleep. All I can tell is that for myself - and for everyone else I know - sleep is a crucial aspect to the following day.

The amount of sleep required by individuals varies and I don't know why. I've known people who could subsist on 3 hours a night quite nicely. I've known people who absolutely require 8 hours of sleep a night at a minimum and are a wreck between.

Many of most (most of us, depending on what survey you see) are sleep deprived. I didn't really used to accept this - for years I lived on 4-5 hours a night because I had lengthy commutes and I wanted to have a life - but realized that I had all the classic symptoms: tired during the day, making up lots of sleep on the weekends.

Sleep matters because being rested matters, because starting the day rising up refreshed is far different than starting the day dragging yourself out of bed:

1) Find your sleep amount: I suspect most people need more than they think. A classic method is to start at 8 hours a night, then cycle back a half hour at a time until you find your limit. This becomes the minimum amount of sleep a night you need. It will be different for other people. Accept this.

2) Keep your sleep amount: Once you've determined the minimum amount you need, assiduously guard it. If your rising time is 0500 and you need 7 hours of sleep, you need - NEED - to be in bed, asleep, no later than 2200.

You'll find excuses of course - I always do: "I'm not tired yet" or "Just five minutes more to do this". The reality is that every excuse you make deprives you of the ability to start the day out right. Keep your sleep schedule the way you keep your important meetings: inviolate and on-time.

3) Sleep when you sleep: There is a multitude of sleep resources on the Internet so I'll not belabor the point. Just make sure that when you're asleep, you stay asleep. You'll find the things that cause you to be disturbed during the night. To the greatest extent possible, fix them. It's a matter of both quantity and quality.

The best guard against a bad start to the day is to insure that night before was one that allows you to rise fully rested and refreshed to meet the day. The day's struggles will be enough. Don't compound them by being run down yourself.

Starting The Day: Miasma

Sometimes the problem with trying to get positive minded and "successed up" is overcoming the morning.

I really wish I understood why things worked this way. There are days where I can spring out of bed ready to act and enthusiastic. There are other days (today, as you may have guessed, is one) where it is all I can do to acknowledge that today has come and I'll probably need to be about something.

The difficulty, of course, is that that moving forward is built on making progress every day - yes some days more, some days less - but still moving forward, something that a mind set such as mine this morning would seem to make impossible. A morning before anything else spent in the doldrums will lead to a day spent in the doldrums, which hardly moves anything anywhere.

It's certainly not achieved by dwelling on the bottom rung, the place that I seem to be trapped so much of the time. Nor is it achieved (as I can attest to by personal experience) by simply "willing" myself out of a mood - it always seems faked.

No, the times that I am most able to turn my "epic fail in life" mood around is when I am able to look to something else or someone else, that I turn my eyes from whatever is here to what is there, from what is to what is possible.

The morning sets the tone for the rest of the day. By learning to fix this, I think I can learn to make every day that much more successful, that much more of a progression, instead of a stand-in-place failure.

Dead Ends: How Do I Avoid Them?

The purpose of life can be many things and can include successes and how well we lived. While avoiding Dead Ends is not necessarily a guarantee to a better life, knowing when they occur and how to avoid them at the beginning generally means we waste less time on trying to get out them, thus giving time to spend on things of greater value. Once again, it seems an ounce of prevention prevents a pound of cure.

But how do we learn to avoid Dead Ends? Especially when we're young and perhaps lack knowledge (or wisdom), we enter into things and relationships that serve us ill in the long run yet we've not the ability to see it. Is there some sort of screen or filter we can use now - and teach to those who are younger - on what to look for in anything to try to verify, as much as possible, that it is not a Dead End?

1) Plan: Things go better in anything - vacations, getting ready in the morning, life- with a plan. Knowing where we're going and having it documented by a map, a list, or a life plan make it less likely we'll veer off track and end up some place that we didn't intend. Again, this is an activity that requires thinking and consideration on our part. Example: If you plan to become a veterinarian, there are certain things you have to do to prepare yourself to get accepted into Veterinarianary school. It is probable that doing poorly in school leading up to that point is not one of those activities that will support that ultimate goal. Knowing that, we can make the better choice for the ultimate destination.


2) Learn : In reality, many of us know through painful experience the outcome of choices leading to Dead Ends. We simply need to learn to leverage that knowledge from our past into other areas of our lives. This also requires effort on our part: we need to train ourselves to extract principles from the experience of our lives. An example might be that we know that other jobs in the same industry will have issues needing to be confronted, although perhaps not the same issues, so the idea that a simple job change will completely change a career that we consider a Dead End is probably not an accurate one.

3) Consider: This is a Stephen Covey concept which he so clearly elucidates in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People as "Knowing the end from the beginning". Look a period of time down the road (Covey suggests the eulogies at your funeral). If you started with this choice - person, activity, career, lifestyle - where do you think it will lead in 20 years?

It's a careful needle we need to thread here - too often we veer to the extreme of "Blue Sky Thinking", where nothing bad will ever happen and we'll be massively successfully. Yes, we should look at that - but we should also look at the failures as well. What's the worst that could happen? It may take some research on our part - for example, what is the happiness of people in a chosen career field after 20 years, or do marriages with alcoholics tend to work out well - but for many things, we can at least gain the knowledge of potential outcomes.

4) Teach: We all - especially those of us that have racked up the "hash marks" of living known as birthdays - have our own tales of Dead Ends we have arrived at or chosen. It's not enough to try and find our own way out. We need to take that experience and share it with others - our children, our relatives, our coworkers, our friends - anyone who is in the place or process of making decisions. We need to share our past, help them to extract the principles of good and bad decision making in the short and long term, help them to understand and create a plan. Ask anyone who's suffered from a miserable Dead End brought on by bad choices and their fervent wish will be that no-one else has to undergo what they have undergone.

If time is the stuff of life, then the less time spent in Dead Ends, the more time we have to make effective choices that lead to desirable results and success. The ultimate difference: thinking before we act rather than acting before we think. Acting without thinking in driving in life leads us to Dead Ends. Acting without thinking in life is no different.

Dead Ends: How Do I Get Out?

We've admitted that we're in one (or many) dead ends in any number of areas in our lives. We've admitted that these do happen, and hopefully we've taken the time review the map of how eventually got to this dead end where we never intended to be in the first place.

Good news: Now it's time to get out!

But how do we get out, we may ask? The situation we are in seems to have gone for so long and the opportunities we have to get out, let alone change things, are so limited. We've made our list of how we got here and frankly, we don't think we could recreate the directions of how we arrived, let alone trace our steps to the fork in the road where we came from.

Happily, there are multiple options:

1) Retrace the path: This certainly doesn't work in all situations - we can't for example, go back twenty years in the past and knowing what we know now, take a pass on a relationship - but it does work in some. Example: In debt? How did we get here? By spending too much. Why did we spend to much? We wanted x and y, so we got a credit card. Solution: retrace to the problem (credit card, spending) and change that.

2) Preposition our way out: Another piece of good news (two in one post!) is that our Dead Ends are not necessarily the same as real, physical Dead Ends like cul-de-sacs. For those, there is only one entrance and exit. Other Dead Ends are not (usual) spatial in nature, and so the linear path of retracing our steps may not be the only way to go.

Preposition our way out? Think of the common prepositions we use daily: over, under, around, through, across, beneath, up down (here's a longer list). Take those prepositions and apply them to our Dead End: Is the Dead End something we can go around or under (Like a difficult person or situation)? Is the Dead End something we can go across (like a similar career field or staying with our music but learning to play a different instrument)? Is our Dead End something we can simply go through (a change which, if executed, will move us through the issue)?

We've been trained in a world that moves in a linear, one dimensional fashion. It's time to be spatially expansive in how we address our lives.

3) Plan the Change, and Execute: Sometimes Dead Ends are simply that: Dead Ends that, no matter how hard we try, we're not going to be able to back, around, through or over. In those cases, there's really nothing to do except plan to make a significant change, one that does not follow this Dead End in any way, and execute it. The important point here is that, once the situation has been recognized as irredeemable, to intellectually accept that a change needs to be made, plan the change, and do it.

There is only one Dead End (in this life, anyway) which cannot be changed: Death, the sort of ultimate Dead End. All others are lesser than this immutable fact and thus, something can be done. We just need to find the will and (often) the creative thought and iron will to do it.

Bang the Drum Slowly

Unfortunate news: Maeve of Connaught is leaving.

She's going on to do that which she has done before and done well and will do well again. I cheer for her, and weep for myself.

Weep? Yes. Of all that confronts me in my business, she was the only thing or person there from which I could learned something new. My opportunities to learn and grow where I am have become vastly curtailed.

She was someone who had done this before multiple times successfully. There never was a foolish question, and she was always ready to give feedback and share her experience - and having been successful, it was experience that counted. Hers was the first attitude I have seen in a long time - maybe ever - of "What do you need, let's fix it" - and then backing it up with actually fixing it instead of delegating all the responsibility to you, the suggestor of the problem, to repair.

She was the first leader I've had in many years - and certainly the best - of being part of the individuals she was leading as well as leading. She was the one that sat with folks at lunch or laughed (loudly) at jokes or went out to discuss things after work. She was the one whose coming into your office did not immediately invoke a sense of dread or the tuning out of the higher brain functions as one prepared for lecturing or another layer of work. She led, yes - but she led beside you, not five steps in front of you.

The best analogy I can think of is trench warfare in World War I where, after the shelling, the Captain blows the whistle and shouts "Up and Over, boys." There are two thoughts at that point: the one that if The Captain says go you're sure that somehow all will work out well and you'll come back to the trench, or the one that says if The Captain says go there is little to no hope that you'll return.

Maeve is, obviously, the former.

There were other issues of course: home in one state, working in another; her beloved dogs and her horse that were "in exile" while she was among us; the care and feeding of us in a situation that was undoubtedly less than optimal. The fact that she gave so freely, for so long, continues to amaze me.

It's amazing the impact that one person, properly trained and experienced and a true leader, can have on any organization. The sense of purpose and enthusiasm while they are there present and active is only seemingly eclipsed by the emptiness and void left by their going. They are truly those who bring joy by their coming and sadness by their going.

The fact that those feelings are seldom felt is probably a reflection of the fact that there are truly few exceptional leaders that one encounters in one's life. I've had the privilege to know a handful - now, I can add one more to the ranks.

Ave atque Vale, Maeve. May you continue to do your good work - not just your job, but the process of molding and inspiring others - in a environment where it is so desperately needed.

Dead Ends: How Did I Get Here?

"How did I get to a Dead End?" we may have asked ourselves in the past? "I did my homework on this career" or "Person X and I really examined ourselves before we moved into the next phase of our relationship. It just seems like it happened out of nowhere."

The truth is that Dead Ends, like virtually everything else in life, do not simply appear out of nowhere. The analogy of a physical dead end is applicable: we don't just show up in a cul-de-sac or cove, we somehow get there - either purposefully or by accident.

Now, arriving at a cul-de-sac to visit a friend or a cove to enjoy a lovely afternoon on the lake is one thing; to arrive there when we fully expected to be somewhere else is far more depressing, especially when we fully expected to be somewhere else.

But just like determining that we need to reverse our direction to get to where we need to go, we also need to figure out how to do this in our personal Dead Ends. And, just like driving, we need to take a crucial first step before going: How did I get here?

The reality is that if we are truly honest with ourselves, most of the Dead Ends we find ourselves in do not truly arise out of nowhere. Somewhere, in the back of our minds, we had inklings or expectations that this might be the case. Oft times it results from a decision hastily made; other times it stems from a decision made thoughtlessly or with less than fully consideration or even consciously ignoring ourselves or others. Either way, much like passing streets we don't recognize and aren't expecting yet continuing on, there are almost always indicators before we arrive that the road we are on is leading to a Dead End.

Of course we acknowledge that in order to leave a Dead End, we need to get back to where we got lost. But before we do, we need to take a moment to orient ourselves and figure out what we need to do. It's instructive to ask these questions:

1) What is the Dead End I am in?: Define the Dead End. What specifically is it: Is the the job, or is it the career? Is it the specific thing I am doing, or does this activity overall really not suit me? Is it specifically this time in our relationship, or is it the relationship in general? Without specifically defining the Dead End, it is difficult to figure out what we will need to do.

2) How did I get here?: This requires a bit more thought - and a lot of honesty. Look back over the history of the Dead End. Why did you choose it? What were your thoughts when you made this choice (if you're a journaler, this can be a useful tool in recreating your thought processes)? What did you hope to get out of it? Were there any signs at the time of choosing, or any time after, that gave you pause in your decision? If so, why did you choose to ignore them?

Turning around and navigating out of a Dead End is not difficult - but if we don't know where we are and how we got here, we'll simply succeed in arriving at another Dead End.

Dead Ends

Dead End (n): An end (as with a street) without an exit; a position, situation, or course of action that leads to nothing further.

Dead ends come to us in many forms: relationships, jobs, careers, hobbies, even the literal dead ends of a wrong turn and no where else to go. Yet surprisingly, as I think about it, there is little (if anything) that I have read about how to deal with one.

Why is this? What is it about dead ends that (apparently) cause them to sink below our consciousness and ability to deal with? Otherwise competent and skilled people seem to sink into morasses of inability when faced with one. There are the typical solutions, of course - suck it up and deal with it or get out - but I wonder if those options are so common that we use them without thinking.

Or is it possible that the dead end is so common to the human experience and so painful that we would rather not give a great deal of thought to the matter?

The situations that we often find dead ends in are often painful in deep ways: the job or career that is not fulfilling but there seem to be no options; the relationship that will not advance beyond a level of intimacy yet has had so much time and energy invested into it; the hobby or activity at which we have reached a level and cannot seem to go beyond it. Each of these bears similar characteristics: something of importance to us which we have a great deal of time and energy invested in, that a sense of not being able to move forward creates feelings of depression, hopelessness, and powerlessness.

But what if there is another option?

Think of Star Wars where on the Death Star Han Solo, faced with the sudden arrival of a squad of stormtroopers, does the unthinkable: screaming wildly, he starts shooting and charges them, forcing them to flee. Or the Heike Monogatari where, when told that the cliffs around Ichi-no-tani were too steep for a horse, said "If a deer can do it, a horse can do it", charged down with 50 of his men, and took the field.

The odd contrast is that while we are so often depressed and hopeless about the situation, the greatest stories and greatest achievements are done in the face of seeming dead ends - or maybe not real dead ends, as there was a way out.

The dead ends we face in our lives may seem like they represent the end of trails with no hope, but in reality they may represent the greatest opportunity for personal achievement - if only we will look for it.

Personal Brand: How to Maintain One

Brands, like virtually everything else are subject to diminishment, decay, and dissolution. Cut across any age group and ask and you will get a walk down memory lane for brands which no longer exist - half remembered commercials, snippets of jingles, even the thing the brand was known for. But the brand itself - gone, by purchase or failure. Or, worst of all, it continues exist, sadly diminished and tarnished from its former glory.

That's why brands - both corporate and our own - need to be maintained. Periodically, we need to review how our brand is perceived and functioning in the world around us. If we don't maintain it, we will lose it.

How do we do this?

1) KPI (Key Performance Indicators): Just as in business there are Key Performance Indicators which demonstrate how the business is doing, so for our brand there are key performance indicators as well. Unfortunately, they're not nearly as well defined as they can be in a business so they require some thought and definition. If your brand is wisdom, how many times have you distributed it or suggestions been adapted? If it's perseverance, how many things did you finish this month that you started? If it's joviality, have you been consistently jovial, or only when the mood strikes you?

Obviously, these need to be defined up front. Just as obviously, they will probably need to be changed over time. But the important thing is to have some to measure against.

2) Feedback: Just as in business companies attempt to gather the information about how their product is perceived by surveys and customer feedback, so we also need to gather information from our "customers" how our brand is doing. Sometimes this can be measured indirectly by things such as greater or lesser number of interactions, projects, etc. Perhaps the most effective way - and the most vulnerable - is to simply start soliciting the opinions of others. "I'm trying to work on these areas - how do you think I'm doing?"

Yes, it can be very painful to take criticism - especially when I find out that I am not being perceived at all as I intended. But without actual knowledge of how my brand is being perceived and used, I'll have no real idea of how successful I really am.

3) Goals: The purpose of any brand is to do something, whether "make money" or "solve a critical need". How is our brand helping us hit goals we have set, professional or personal? If I have set a goal - for example, promotion within x years - and I have not arrived there, it's probably a safe question to at least ask "Is my brand doing what I thought it was doing?" If not, is the brand the correct one? Or is the goal something I can't achieve with this brand?

I believe that personal branding, properly done, can be a great aid - both to focus ourselves on what we want to do as well as helping us to achieve the goals we set. But just as with any marketing company, without taking thought of where we are, what we want to be, how we can do it, and how we can maintain it, our brand will be perceived less as a "brand" by others and more as a phase we are going through, soon to be replaced by another personality trait.

Be different. Be your brand.

Personal Brand: How to Implement One

Now that we've developed a personal brand by identifying those five to seven values or elements that we would like to be associated with ("branded with", if you will), how do we about implementing them?

Why the thought? Why not just immediately start executing on what we've written down? Because action without thought seldom accomplishes the end which we think. It's not only what we think our revised personal brand will look like - it's what others will perceive the new personal branding as being?

An example? New Coke. The Coca-Cola company thought "Great new flavor, great new logo". Consumers received it as "nothing wrong with the old flavor, no-one asked me, why did you do this?" The result? One of the shortest product launches in history.

How to go about it? Simple. Start with each characteristic we have identified. We've already written down how we want that characteristic to be perceived. Now write out what it would look like - not in our ideal circumstances, but in the circumstances that we are in. Personal Branding will eventually enable us to change our environment - it will not happen right away.

An example: one of the items on my list is "Thoroughness", something I have not always been terribly good at. I want to be perceived as someone who thinks things out and executes them thoroughly, leaving no hanging threads. In practical terms? That means taking some time at the beginning of something to lay out the entire framework of impact and assess any changes. It means listing precisely what "complete" would look like - and then executing to ensure everything is accounted for.

The perception of others? Initially it may not go well. I will not immediately respond to others, but take time to map out everything that is involved. Solving things may take longer as well and completing 10 things often takes longer than completing one. But the result? A problem or situation will be thoroughly resolved instead of coming up in a few months.

Remember as well that in executing any branding strategy (product or personal), everything counts. How things look, how things sound, how things feel - all of these have impact on the idea that you are presenting of yourself. To quote Brian Tracy, "Everything Counts".

Once we've written out what it looks like, we need to start executing it. For myself, I have starting writing it down in multiple places - in my planner, on a card in my office, in my car. I need to constantly start thinking "This is my brand. This is what I am now." Those reminders are necessary for me, because this is a new behaviour on my part. New behaviors take time (up to six weeks by some account).

Do we roll them all out at once or one at a time? That's really dependent on the individual. I myself would have problems completely becoming different all at once. I need to move one block into place at a time, possibly two. For others, all at once is the way to got. Whatever one decides, it should always be in the context of "Can I really do and maintain this if I do this, or will I overwhelm myself and fail?"

How do we ensure our branding is going well? That's for tomorrow. For today, let's think of what that perfect brand of us would look like in the imperfect circumstances of where we are - and how that brand will change those circumstances.

Personal Brand: What Should it Be?

We've established that everyone has a personal brand, whether we are aware of it or not. We've established what a brand is. We've even gone as far as establishing what our brand currently is. The next step: What would I like my brand to be?

This is not the same how do I get my brand to be that (that's tomorrow). This is the sort of "blue sky" thinking where we should engage our fondest wishes, dreams and desires to what we can be perceived as and associated with - just as we should undergo the same sort of exercise when we start looking at personal and professional goals. But in a way, personal branding is more exciting, both because it can help us achieve our goals and because it ends up far more rooted in reality: I may never go to Mars (which may be goal), but I can be "branded" as an risk taking, entrepreneurial, forward thinker.

How do you determine what your personal brand can be? I don't know that there is one method or concept. Things to consider might include:

- Traits and attributes I admire

- Reflecting on times when I've been praised or have done a good job. What did I do to accomplish that?

- Role models and mentors. What is it about them that attracts you?

- What are you good at? What do you want to be good at?

- Examine the things that you purchase. Is there something associated with those that you also would like to be known for?

- Perform the exercise Stephen Covey calls "Projecting into the Future". Write your obituary. What would you like said about you?

How complete should your branding be? There are two answers to this question:

1) Select three to five words that represent traits or attributes you would like to be known for (for example, Brian Tracy in TurboCoach lists over 100). Just like Coke was "Cool and Refreshing" or Apple is "Hip and Cool", simple is better.

2) Go through and develop each idea more fully. If you want to be known for wisdom (one of mine), what would that look like? How would people react? In your personal and professional life, how would that be evidenced.

Companies spend a great deal of time and money positioning their potential and actual brands to ensure that they hit the correct demographic with the correct message. They have marketing teams and consultants - we have ourselves. As the individual ultimately responsible for determining our own brands, we would be well advised to do the same sort of deep thought and planning.

Personal Brand: What is One?

Brand (n): A class of goods identified by name as the product of a single firm or manufacturer; a characteristic or distinctive kind.

How does a brand come to be? Every product we use, every person we know that is famous, at one time was as ordinary as any of the others. At one time, there were multiple computer makers including Apple; now, there is a brand of computer (Apple) and other companies that make computers.

Or individuals: there are certain actors or sports personnel or public personnel have such a reputation (brand) that they are almost guaranteed a success with whatever they participate in: JK Rowling (Author), James Cameron (Director), Dan Elway (Sports, both as player and manager),

In both cases, what they do has become so associated with who they are that by the very presence or name, a certain level of excitement is generated and a certain amount of success is guaranteed - it's not as if Hewlett-Packard were to annouce a new product release that they would ship 3 million units as Apple has recently.

So a brand is both an association with an individual or company (class of goods) as well as a reputation that comes with that individual or company (characteristic or distinctive kind).

But there's a second, older meaning of the word "brand" that also works: "A mark made by burning with a hot iron to attest manufacture or quality or to designate ownership."

We think of branded cattle of course, but throughout history a brand has been used on items (and not just wood; Japanese blades carry their own "branding" - the "mei" or signature on the blade) to indicate the manufacture by an individual (usually). The mark ("brand") becomes the sign that that object has a high probability of delivering the quality of the individual producer.

In the same manner, the mark of ownership also indicates a certain level of quality - if I see anything that is an broken down or slovenly condition with a company or corporate name attached, my impression of that company will probably drop, knowing nothing else except the fact that their mark is associated with something I personally don't want to be associated with.

All well and good. But on from the theoretical: If there are such things as brands (and there are), what do I do?

The first exercise is to understand what your brand is currently (we'll deal with what your brand could be tomorrow). So do this: sit down and treat yourself like a product. In a short paragraph make an effort to write down as clearly and unemotionally as possible what you believe your brand to currently be. Be honest: you only hurt yourself by pretending that your brand is other than what it is. Don't be brutal, of course, but if one of your brand marks is "I'm late all the time", put that in there.

If we are the product (and we are), then in order to improve our brand we have to understand what our brand is. But don't despair: Apple went from technological innovator to yesterday's news (remember when the stock was $14.00?) back to a technological innovator with a brand reputation that is among the highest in any industry (and a stock price over $600). The same is true for us, if only we can start by understanding the branding we consciously or unconsciously project to others.

Personal Brand: Got One?

What is your personal brand?

I was challenged last week by the thought introduced by Brian Tracy in his book TurboCoach(chapter 20, for those of you following along at home). "You may be surprised", he says, "to learn that you are your most important product." And as a product, each of us has a reputation, an image, things that people attribute to us. "It is not a question of whether you should have a personal brand image, for you already have one. Rather, it is a question of whether you choose to consciously create your personal brand or merely leave it to chance."

If you think about it, it's absolutely true. We think of this on a personal level - we are so often counseled in our youth to "guard our reputation". We diligently work to build a body of work as we seek to enter college ("the well rounded application") and then continue to build on it as we go through school, seeking either greater schooling or that first job.

And then, for many of us, we simply seem to fall off the map. Why is this?

Because we abdicate personal responsibility for our brand. We simply start to coast rather than build - and as Tracy points out, "There's only one direction you can coast."

As we work, our reputation becomes enmeshed in that of which we are working as well as other factors: the politics of where we live, the department and career in which is work, the functionality of the company we are in. Suddenly, it feels as if our reputation is not so much under our control as it is under the control of factors which we don't control: the manager who manages poorly yet takes all our credit; other departments which take all we do and still maintain that we do it badly; the coworker whose poor efforts tarnish the efforts of the department. Too often, we slowly begin to settle for the brand that is determined for us.

Our brand never goes away, of course; it's just that we lose the belief that our input is as important as that of the factors around us.

This sort of thinking, if left alone and applied to its logical extent, will leave us in 20 years somewhat surprised that we have absolutely no brand, no reputation, outside of the one which we had when we came in - the items we "used to do" - along with whatever the factors around us have given us.

What to do? That's what we'll discuss this week. But the most important fact for today is to simply become aware of the fact that, whether we like it or not, we each have a personal brand.

And that it is our job to consciously manage it.

The Larger World

Beyond sight of land,
the fish sees his inlet
is part of the sea.

First Week of Spring

Morning bird call thrums
Where before thunder rumbled:
Precipitous change?

Forest

Last night at Iaido we practiced a new drill. It was called the Forest Drill.

A series of stands (5-8) were set up with various items (hoops, balls, an exercise "thing") on them. The intent is that you move through the obstacles, striking each and insuring that you never leave your back to a "live" opponent.

The drill started slowly at first - after all, we've never done this before. The cuts and thrusts are choppy and the movements slow. Then, as we began to get better, our sensei moved the arrangement around and threw in a new twist: a live body at the end ready to cut. Now the objective was to hit each obstacle and then block and attack at the end.

After adjusting, two attackers were added. Then three. All while continuing to move through the obstacles, never leaving a back to an unhit opponent. Then the final opponent would attack twice. Then thrice.

It was the most fun I've had in a long time.

Fun? Actual "combat" is something we seldom practice (for obvious reasons), so the practice of doing what we train to do is novel. But beyond that, it's the actual practice of our practice: not just practicing cuts and kata, but having to use them quickly. Defending from a real attacker, rather than defending from a reflection in the mirror. Having to strike multiple opponents quickly and without hesitation yet thinking all the time about leaving no threats behind one as you move into the fray. Mentally preparing after all the obstacles for the live opponent - and then, during the obstacles, the live opponents - who will attack in ways you cannot defend against until the attack comes.

It was glorious.

By the time I was done I was sweating profusely, my throat rubbed raw by kiai-ing (shouting) after every cut.

It was hard - but at the same time easy. It was putting into practice what we train to do.

Would that all we trained for was put into practice regularly. What we not be capable of?

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.