The Growing List of Things I Don't Understand

When I was 20 I knew everything, but now I'm five years from being three times that there's a growing list of things I don't understand.

Why do women ask questions when they don't really want an answer? Why do people say bad things about themselves when you give them a compliment?

How come no one knows how to merge? Why do people lead by being rude and nasty, when if they simply asked courteously I'd do everything I could to help them? Does this work well in other areas of their life?

Why does my favorite football coach antagonize the media every day on every question? He persists in his East Coast brusqueness when they are just doing their job, and their job promotes his job, and earns him the cushy corner office with the carpet and leather-bound chairs.

We pulled out all the combat troops out of Iraq, but left behind 50,000 in non-combat roles. Isn't there a strong likelihood that 50,000 Americans, in an unstable country with a history of 5000 years of mayhem and religious fanaticism, are likely to become a target for insurgents, that retaliation, sabotage, terrorism, hostage-taking and suicide bombings are a certainty, and within a year there'll be a act of reprisal so horrific it's likely to pull us back into this mess? The war in Iraq has been the longest in U.S. history. It has cost 4,000 American lives and billions of dollars. It plunged us into centuries-old hatreds and sealed the fate of the world. If we're leaving we ought to leave. It seems to me we should have left the day after Saddam Hussein was captured. I don't understand global politics. Most days I don't want to.

Why do I pull all my putts to the right, and if work really hard at correcting this, I start pushing them to the left? How can a hole four feet away be so hard to reach? If it exasperates me so much, why do I always come back tomorrow? It's a game for fools, which explains my fascination with it.

The list grows daily and is inexhaustible. Why does my family leave a quarter cup of milk in the bottom of the jug? Why do we fall asleep with the light on and kick off the covers? Why does everyone charge a fee to make a payment, and answer the phone with annoying recorded voices that ask a dozen irritating questions before you can get to a real person?

In a just world, lemon meringue pie would be good for you, and all the vitamins would be in a bacon. To reach 60 you have to let go of foolish hopes for justice and logic and consistency. Just tap the brakes until everyone joins the stream of traffic. Eventually we'll all get where we're going, and someone will wake up and turn off the lights.

Grumpy Old Man III

I'm rapidly becoming the old man I vowed never to be. When I wake up in the morning I take a silent inventory of what hurts. My back. My shoulder. My hip. I clear my throat with that same disgusting suck of snot my father used to do. I'm cranky and irritable. I'd just as soon go back to sleep.

Even into my forties I was an athlete. I played a 150 games of softball a summer and when I stopped doing that I practiced golf four hours a day. Although you'd never tell from the current state of my game. I ran. I lifted weights. I felt a dozen years younger than my age.

Yesterday we went out to the nine-hole pasture where we play our casual rounds, and everything hurt. It hurt to sit or stand or swing a club. I left a four-foot putt an inch short. My chips skittered short of the green. I made 34, a decent score for my skill level, but didn't enjoy a single moment. My mindset sucked. The other day at work I had chest pains and a stabbing pain on the right side of my face. I called my wife at lunch and she urged me to go to the doctor. I told I couldn't, because I'd get an occurence for leaving shift. My boss is a peach of a guy. We take 2000 calls a month, many of them from cranks and abusers and fools. When he does our monthly evaluation he pulls out our very worst customer survey of the month, and bases his evaluation on that. He's a head hunter, a despot, a fat man with tiny hands and a small mind. I'd like to choke him. I'd go real slow.

I should go to the gym and stretch my aches and wounds, but I'm going to go to bed and start this day over. This time I'll try to wake up on the right side of the bed. I'll have a little dish of ice cream and flip off a cop on the way to work. Maybe he'll shoot me.

Don't mind me, I'm only kidding. After all I'm just a grumpy old man. I have four days off starting tomorrow. Maybe I'll go hiking and clear my head.

Effusive Praise for Mediocrity

I watch "America's Got Talent" every week, but the show confuses me. Piers Morgan buzzes a juggler off the show if he misses one ball, or a magician if he fumbles a single card, but singers get a free pass. A singer can utterly butcher a song, flat, toneless, barely controlling her breathing, a 65% rendition of a song done far better by the original artist, and Morgan and the other judges praise their courage and improvement. Why are the standards so much lower for vocalists?

Last week a female contestant covered "Right Now" by Carrie Underwood. She shouted the chorus and was painfully flat in the first verse, but somehow the panel gave her massive credit for showing up. A young man did a county fair talent show version of John Mayer, miserable and mediocre, and you'd have thought he nailed it. An unknown singer ought to be exceptional to be passed forward, because everybody thinks they can sing. American Idol and its various imitators have given far too many people false hope. Hope is a good thing, but not when it's based on delusion and low standards.

Complicating things even further is the fact that many popular, successful acts aren't that talented. Musicians are so digitally enhanced and overdubbed in the studio that many careers are forged simply because the "artist" looks good vamping in a video. They even lip-synch in live performances. It's fundamentally dishonest. A performer that is the authentic, total package is rare.

I was stunned by the 10-year-old girl who sang a classical song, Jackie Evancho from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She truly had a stunning voice. Some of the performer who advance on the show get far too much credit merely for getting through a 90-second performance. I hope next time she performs a crossover tune, a popular ballad, to give the audience a broader frame of reference for appreciating her talent. It will make the difference between true artistry and singing well enough more apparent.

A Quick Update from Chaos Central

We're trying again. She came to me crying and I took her to my arms, and Saturday after work we went dancing. The last few days have been gentle and sweet. For her birthday I bought her a black amethyst gift set from Bath and Body Works, some pink golf balls and flowers and a bottle of wine. Things are quieter and gentler, and I'm hopeful we can stay out of the storms.

The Ducks open fall practice today, and Ethan loves his golf club. Stephanie had to keep it out of range of the TV. He plays with it all the time. Work is going better. It's tough to maintain when your life is uncertain and chaotic, especially when people start in about how a tiled picture on their television is the worst thing that ever happened to them.

We're going to play golf today and the sun is coming out. I know I am strong enough to endure anything and blessed with life and health. The details we will sort out.

Finding A Pattern That Works for Me

I write three blogs now, labors of love, this one, one on affirmations, Envision Your Best Self Daily , and The Duck Stops Here, which is about Duck Football. None of the three are going to make me rich. Let's be honest, none of the three are going to make me a dime. But all of the experts say the secret to true success and true happiness is to find your passion and follow it. At some point I'll add a poker blog and a golf blog, and the chief benefit of all that blogging will be that I'm writing every day. Writing is life, hope, and engagement. Writing is the exercise and the discipline that gives life to my heart and mind. Oh, I have to admit, a good deal of the time I don't have a whole lot to say. But in writing you discover your voice, and the effort to dedicate and develop yourself is more than worth it. It engages me. It gives me hope, and the means to reflect and to grow. It isn't a seamless or quick process. It's something you dig out of the ground, like mining for gold. You have to move around a lot of dirt to get to the priceless stuff. You have to keep believing the priceless stuff is within you. I fervently believe it is.

I made an important discovery today, or more accurately, an important rediscovery. The best time for me to write is in the dead of the night, The dark early morning hours when the apartment is quiet and everyone is asleep. That's the time when it can't get sidetracked by the demands of the day or heat or noise or pressing obligations. It's the sacred time that isn't clogged up with anything else. This is the best time for me to write. This is when I am the most trusting and the most clear and the most earnestly committed.

I don't often want this to be the subject. It's dangerous to be writing about writing, navel contemplation to the ninth degree, holding a keyboard like the guy on the Cream of Wheat box holding a box of Cream of Wheat that has a picture of a guy holding a box of Cream of Wheat. You can get lost in paradoxes or redundancy. There's far more interesting stuff to consider.

Tonight however I needed to make a declaration. I want to write, and I want to write every day, and the best time for me to do that is in the wee hours of the morning when every thing is dead silent and the years and memories come back to me. I can make out the outlines of the shadows. I can hear the voice of God and the music in the stillness. I can't write when someone is watching me with suspicious or distrusting eyes. I can't write in chaos and clamor. I need quiet. I grew up in a chaotic house of seven children and two dysfunctional adults who were either in a frenzy of codependent ecstasy or screaming misery and nightmare violence. The quiet soothes me and takes me back to my safest place. I crave quiet and stillness. I'm terrified of meanness, sarcasm, anger and demeaning brutality. I have no stomach for hurt. There's a shame within me I'd give almost anything to avoid revisiting. Except when I'm writing. When I'm writing I'm not afraid of anything, which is why I want to do it more than anything in the world. I'm glad I got that out. I don't do it to slight anyone or ignore anyone or hurt their feelings. I do it because it's the most necessary and vital journey of my life.

Here's What I Gotta Do

1. Eat with more forethought and attentiveness. Eat sensibly. Control my portions. Eat smaller meals more often. Mix in some vegetables. Don't eat merely for comfort or entertainment. Drink more water--don't fall into the trap of eating because I'm thirsty, eating because I'm bored, eating to pass the time or accompany the television. Take time to focus on and enjoy my food, take small bites, really chew and taste the food. Don't gobble. Avoid eating mindlessly or indifferently. Avoid eating on the run or while occupied or preoccupied with something else. Part of the benefit of saying a blessing over food is to remind us that food is a blessing, a celebration of safety and provision and abundance, and the act of eating is an acceptance of mercy and sustenance and grace. It's foolish to take the food I eat for granted. It's a grievous detriment to my health and well-being. Mix in some exercise and activity. Get moving. Don't be a slug, or a slave to habit. Get started. Don't waste the day, particularly my leisure hours, which are precious and hard-earned.

2. Stop harboring murderers and thieves. Anger, worry, frustration and hurt are the soul-destroyers and silent killers. They age us by the minute and rob our lives of joy and hope. Examine why I have these feelings. Let go of things I can't control, and develop a plan to do something about the things I can change. Take the first step. Declare my intentions. Stand up for myself and what is important. Stop wasting time in misery or inattention, reflect on my life, and change its direction. What is my purpose? What is my plan? What am doing about it? I have to realize that bad habits and mindless pastimes and stored misery will keep me stuck forever, but only if I allow it. Move forward. Be honest with myself and others. Reach out instead of clamming up and suffering.

3. Make a list. Make several lists. I ought to have a bucket list, a list of goals, a list of obligations and issues and problems to solve, a list for the day, a list for the month and year. I ought to pray over those lists with same devotion I pray over my food, because these tasks and hopes and assignments are the abundance I am given to "eat" in life. I spend too much time staying numb and keeping occupied, while the undone and unexamined and unaddressed pile up around me. I am lazy in heart and failing life. Most of the time I merely exist. This is harsh criticism, but warranted. All the important things I ignore. So many of the trivial things obsess me.

4. Get a new job. My present job is a perfectly honorable and good job, for someone else. It doesn't interest or engage me. I spend my work day being abused by toxic people over something that isn't my fault and doesn't matter at all, something that wastes time and rots their brains. It is eight hours of misery and drudgery and fear and anxiety and unpleasantness. I dread climbing the stairs to work. I have a lousy shift, a terrible boss, and poor pay. And it's my own damn fault. I didn't plan, I didn't apply my skills and resources, and I haven't researched or prepared a better solution.

5. If I want to write, if I say I want to write, I have to write. Every day. I can't allow myself to be bullied by harshness or sneering criticism, by blow-back. I can't worry about the reaction. I have to write what I see and feel and observe and know and stop hiding. I have to write like my life depends on it, because it does.

That's it for now. There's a lot more I gotta do and consider, but that's a start. Stay tuned.

The Power of the List

Schindler had one. Nixon had one. Every man who gets sent to the grocery store for more than two items ought to have one.

There is an innate power in making a list. It's the beginning of commitment. It's the first step in making a concrete plan for any purpose. Any time I make a list, of my chores, my goals, or my tasks for the day, I create a useful road map toward getting where I want to go.

I had a list today with sixteen things on it and I got fifteen of them done with a half hour to spare. I had four hours, and defeated the time suck and inattention that might have swallowed up the day. I was organized. I was systematic. I avoided false steps or distraction. I feel better already.

There is an old saying, "how do you eat an elephant?" Answer: one bite at a time. Anything, any task, any problem, any goal, any budget, becomes more manageable and doable when you divide it into parts. The path becomes clearer. The first and subsequent steps become more obvious. It becomes easier too to make adjustments. When the plan falls apart or runs into a snag it's easier to prioritize and reschedule.

I like simple lists because they don't seem cumbersome or restrictive. They give me just enough structure to orient myself. My time flows more surely. There's a satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment.

For the rest of my days I resolve to be a list maker and a list achiever. That's important, because I'm getting to the point where I need to compose a bucket list, a list I'm already starting to compile in my head. Next week I have a four-day weekend; I'm taking two vacation days for a much-needed mini-holiday. I have another one the third week of August. It will be a great time for knocking more things off my list.

No one ever has enough time or money. But by using the power of the list, we can make the most of what we have, and recognize with better clarity how much of each we have left. That's a powerful tool for a better, more rewarding, less stressful life.