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Be A Thinker

Thinking... deeply... or just confused.
Thinking… deeply… or just confused.

In this great, big, beautiful world of ours, there is variety of different approaches to everything in life.  Some people are dark and dour – seemingly each moment of the day is spent in a perpetual state of seriousness.  Other people seem to radiate joy, silliness and a joie de vivre that’s impossible not to be positively affected by.  Each of us will have an approach that works best for us.

But beyond just mood, we each look at the world a little bit differently when thinking about issues and ideas.  Maybe you are truly Zen, where your mind is free from influence and clear-eyed to each situation.  Maybe you are harried and hassled with nary a moment to spend in “wasteful” navel-gazing.

Me?  I’m a bit of a thinker and I’m here to make the case for why you should be too.

I think it’s important for me to discuss what I mean by a thinker before dashing headlong into the rest of this post.  A thinker is not someone who is necessarily smarter than anyone else.  It’s important to dispel this notion because (1) I don’t want your reading this entire blog post thinking “You utterly smug and arrogant son of a biscuit…”; and (2) clear definitions just make life easier.  So there.

My definition of a thinker is someone who takes a bit of time to give thought and reflection to decisions, life actions and issues, whether on an intensely personal scale or affecting the world as a whole.  Pretty simple, right?

I implore more people to take this path for two critically important reasons.

First, it can be very easy in an age of technological advancement and communication that borders on magical to be so busy, hassled and frantic to never stop and think.  I am a thinker, but believe me, I fall into this trap at times as well.

Second, I find myself encountering far too man people these days for whom the idea of giving thought to more than one angle of a question is actually a negative.  By way of example, I can think of a few conversations I have had of late where someone would remark, “Ohh, you can’t make up your mind – you would rather keep going back-and-forth…”  Now, if we were talking about what toppings to get on my burger, that’s one thing.  I mean seriously… there really are some delicious accoutrements out there for a delicious slab of grilled ground beef.  Any combination of cheese, bacon, fried egg, grilled onions and avocado will do nicely… umm… sorry.  Burgers distract me.

But the conversations where this point have come up involved more complicated affairs and the seeming lack of interest in thinking about more than one side of a nuanced issue was a bit troubling to me.  I don’t know if it was general impatience or just a predisposition to settling on a narrow viewpoint and holding on tight or just a pitched battle against any shade of gray in a world someone wants to be black and white.

Hence, I urge you to think and to set aside time for thinking (although I admit I am still struggling with that latter suggestion).  It will amaze how you some of your thorniest life issues will unravel a touch when you devote a little time to the endeavor.  And if you find yourself getting a little stuck with a myriad of questions the more you think… just remember it’s possible (and maybe even likely) that you are experiencing it because it is a tricky question.

Dabble in the grays.  There are many… not just 50 shades.

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The Myth of the Mid-Life Crisis

The idea of a “mid-life crisis” seems to be this generic catch-all to explain any activity undertaken by a 40-55 year old that appears to be driven by a misguided intent to make up for lost time or recapture a fleeting bit of youth before it slips through the fingers like grains of sand.  In an interesting twist, almost every case I can think of someone saying a person is going through a mid-life crisis is describing a man – no idea why that is, but it just popped into my mind.  A person in the aforementioned age range can do a variety of things that will call up the mid-life crisis moniker:

  • Buy a sports car, motorcycle or any other propelled sort of toy
  • Does something different with their appearance (colors hair, grows a goatee, gets a tattoo for the first time, etc.)
  • Takes up some new sort of hobby that comes from seemingly out of nowhere

There are certainly more, but these are some of the more obvious.

And the label of this mid-life crisis always comes from someone looking on with a disapproving shake of their head and an exasperated comment of, “Well, there it is… Bill is going through a mid-life crisis.  Does he realize how ridiculous he is acting?”

Except here’s the problem with all of the above:

I think 99.99% of it is pure, 100% unadulterated crap.  Truly.

I got thinking about this the other day as I inch ever-closer to my latest milestone birthday of 40 (coming up in November, so plenty of time for y’all to get your shopping in now… I like gadgets, golf, reading and anything involving lifting heavy stuff repeatedly).  I am planning on doing some kind of trip with any family and friends who would like to come along, not as much as a celebration of “LOOK AT SUPER COOL 40 YEAR OLD ME!  BOOM!” and more just a nice chance to spend time with those closest to me.  But in all of this thinking, I also know I have been reevaluating things in my own life and what I would like to do these next few years.

Now, I don’t plan on buying a Corvette, getting blonde hair implants and moving to LA to finally live out a dream of acting… but what occurred to me about the typical idea of a mid-life crisis is that while people may make some big changes in that 40-55 year old age range, it has a ton more to do with the perspective and (hopefully) wisdom you gain with time and less to do with chasing lost youth.

Are there people who probably meet the criteria of a stereotypical mid-life crisis?  Of course there are.

But for the most part?  I seriously doubt it.

So a 50 year old guy buys a Porsche and it’s the first time in his life he has had a snazzy car.  Maybe he has realized that he has spent a lifetime scrimping and saving and having his nose to the grindstone and finally found a way to just have some fun.

The 45 year old lawyer who decides to get a tattoo for the first time?  Maybe he is just comfortable enough in his own skin to do something different and has finally hit that point in life where the tsk-tsking opinions of others don’t mean doodly-squat.

Heck, my deciding to grow a beard these last 10 days has been nothing more than a “Why don’t I try it?” kind of thing and not a desperate attempt to be different for the sake of being different.  And let’s face facts – I am one handsome SOB.  Take your time to appreciate this for a few minutes before reading on.  I can wait… it will be well-worth your time.

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Me in all my handsome, shaggy glory.

The best thing about getting older is the perspective you gain on life and the increasingly clear realization that it is your life, only your life and if you live it solely based on the expectations of others as opposed to being true to thine own self, you will end up bitterly disappointed.

And that’s my view as a guy just south of the big 4-0: Put yourself out there.  Try stuff.  VERY few mistakes are fatal and many can be kind of fun.  You have to answer to only yourself at the end of the day (or your deity of choice if you are a believer).

I am still way less-than-perfect at this kind of thing, but damn… I am trying hard.

The final piece of advice: Don’t go and do anything or buy anything just because you feel it will make you cooler, hipper or anything along those silly lines.  But if it’s something important to you?  Or even just something that would be interesting to give a run?  Godspeed.  We are each figuring this out as we go and it’s that process that means the most in the end.

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The Size and Shape of Potential

After I did yesterday’s post, the topic of potential started knocking around a lot in my brain for the rest of the day.  You see, I find potential to be one of the more interesting concepts to think about because it has a lot of nuances to it, both good and bad.  I think this is why I have a little bit of a love/hate relationship with potential.

The positive side of potential is fairly obvious: it’s about having the chance to do much, be much and achieve much.  It’s about that bright horizon of promise where so many good things await and you just want to sprint towards it with fervor.  WOO!  GET SOME!

On the other side of the ledger, I think about the quote from former NFL coach Brian Billick when he said, “Son, your potential is going to get me fired.”  The darker side of potential is that it means someone has gifts, talents and abilities… but without the realization of those innate qualities.  Hmm… that’s never good.  This is when all the promise and hope bumps up against the passage of time and people begin to ask, “Umm… soooo… do you plan on actually doing anything with all of your gifts?  Or are ya just gonna sit on them?”  Oof.  Not good.

Potential: cool and refreshing

It made me think about what analogy works best for potential. My initial thought was a glass of water.  There sits a nice, cold, refreshing glass of water representing all of your potential.  If it just sits there and is ignored, it’s just going to become room temperature and possibly taste a little funky after a while.  Instead, you want to get into and drink deeply of it to gain all of its great benefits.

But what happens when you start to get near the bottom of the glass?  When there is just sips left?  Sure, you have nearly maximized everything of that crisp, satisfying potential… umm… but then what?  It’s gone?  Empty?  Nothing left?  What do you look forward to now?  Is there some kind of problem with being incredibly efficient at bringing out the best of the glass of potential you have because one it’s all done… that’s it?

It was at this point I realized the problem was more with the structure of the analogy.  Sure, there is something keenly appealing about the idea of the cold glass of water and making use of it instead of letting it become lukewarm and bleah… but it really hit me that our potential is never going to be a finite container.  How could it be?

We can always develop and get a little better than before – mentally, spiritually, emotionally and physically.  There may be some outer boundaries at some point.  For instance, the window of opportunity for me to fulfill my lifelong dream of playing running back for the Dallas Cowboys is quickly closing… and shut your filthy mouths, you naysayers who say it was never open!  But you see what I mean – I probably will not develop 4.2 speed and the ability to hit an inside draw for a game winning touchdown in Dallas.  That’s OK.

But a lot of my other physical development?  I don’t see any outer limits right now.  It may all take a while, but it’s there because… why the hell not?  You and I are mostly limited by our own set boundaries in the end.

Or intellectual development – does anyone seriously believe they have capped out there?  Who couldn’t learn more and open up their mind to new and exciting possibilities until they draw their very last breath?  I will tell you who – those who decided it couldn’t be done and stunted their own growth in that area.  Them and them alone.

I think that was the most eye-opening part of doing the Tough Mudder a few weeks back.  In the middle of the race, several hours in and feeling tired and beaten all to hell, I realized one important thing – as banged up as I felt, I knew I would finish.  I simply knew it as sure as I was drawing breath (which was probably more like wheezing at that moment, but still a form of oxygen intake regardless).  If I could push through that, what else could I do?

Truthfully, all of my physical training since that time has been markedly improved because the 6 grueling hours of that race showed me where I had limited myself in the past.  It took that grind to break down my self-created walls and open up some squeaky-clean and shiny-new potential.

Flex those boundaries a bit today, my friends.  They will stretch more than you think… especially because you probably created 90% of them anyway.

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Half-Truths, Mistruths and Damned Lies

My t-shirt inspired my blog post today.  Even looking at those words after typing them looks and feels a little odd, but it doesn’t make the initial statement any less true.  The t-shirt in question is here as Exhibit A:

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Man that’s a lot of good-looking going on there.  But I digress (per usual).

The t-shirt comes from Jim Wendler, the creator of the 5/3/1 system for weight training.  I’m not sure the origins of the quote, but it’s always something that struck me a little bit in how it can be applicable in so many areas.  From Jim’s perspective, it pertains primarily to how the fitness industry bombards people with such bad information, snake oil ripoffs and thick layers of hype, none of which will make you any stronger, faster, fitter or healthier (but will likely line the pockets of someone who cares little about you achieving any of those goals).

But today my thoughts on this shirt had less to do with strength training and more to a broader application of the statement.  It’s fairly simple to me:

Every single day, in some way, shape or fashion, society is lying to you, me and everyone else you know.  It’s constant.  It’s pervasive.

Now, if you are thinking, “Who slipped the paranoia pills into your coffee this morning, wacko?” I’m not sure I would blame you.  My assertion is a wee bit on the broad side, but stop for a second and think about it and you will likely come around to my vantage point on this issue.

How often do we hear about the negatives of the world?  The restrictive ideas of who we can be or what we can achieve?  The constant pigeon-holing of everyone into neatly categorized little boxes where we are defined by our jobs?  Or defined by some narrow stereotype or title about how we should live our lives?  Or think about problems big and small?

Let me see if I can illustrate by way of example: Does being a lawyer by training define who I am?  I would never see it that way, although I probably did while in law school and for a while after graduating until one day it occurred to me that was such a confining way of living my life.

Or how about one’s age?  A lot of people have been posting fond memories on Facebook of actress Kathryn Joosten who just passed away at the age of 72.  She didn’t even start acting until she was 42 and only moved to Hollywood when she was 55 years old.  What if she listened to the idea that no one can make a new start (let alone one in the age-obsessed film and TV industry) at such and age?  She would have never had the chance to win 2 Emmy awards.

I could go on and on about this point, but hey, I’m a swell dude and will spare you a mind-numbing barrage of examples to prove the same point… and that point is this:

Today you will be exposed to a colleague, friend, family member, TV commercial, stranger in the street, billboard or God only knows what else that will try and tell you what your potential may or may not be.  It may sound kindly and will almost assuredly be very well-intentioned… but it also may very well be a complete fabrication.

Don’t listen.  Don’t give in.  Be that which you long to be.  And I will give all I can to do the same.

Deal?  Deal.

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Dissatisfaction and The Value of Your Life

I’ve never seen the movie “Network“, but I’ve seen the pivotal scene from the film more than a few times and I was drawn to finding it today on YouTube.  If you’ve never seen it, here it is:

But what was it that brought me to this?

This is seemingly the 3rd post that jumps to mind for me that deals with some kind of rage (see “Choking On Our Own Rage”) or being pissed off (see “Non-Stop, Full Tilt, Every Day Mayhem” with Ray Lewis’s speech on being “pissed off for greatness”) or today about being mad as hell.  Am I just some kind of bitter angry person?  One of those cranky old curmudgeons who shakes his fist on his front porch at the kids to gell off of his lawn?  The guy who finds nothing to be happy about, but more than a little to complain about?  Thankfully, no… I am none of these things… although who doesn’t enjoy a good moment of declaring how things were so much tougher/better when they were growing up and how kids have it SO easy these days?  It’s damn therapeutic, I tell ya.

Shake it up!
Determined to shake myself out of lethargy

However, the video came to mind for me as I thought about the power of never feeling too satisfied with the state of things.  We all get incredibly busy with work, family, friends and rushing around at a hectic pace.  I may be just imagining it and maybe its just my own life, but everything feels to be at an accelerated pace over the last year or so.  More to do and less time to do it.  Doing this for a few days or weeks is manageable, but over longer periods of time, it’s easy to forget about everything going on around you… because you haven’t really stopped to take a look.

And that’s why… every once in a while… we each need to feel truly dissatisfied and maybe get mad as hell.  Not angry in the sense of being pissed off at your fellow man or mindlessly shouting to the heavens for some kind of ephemeral justice.  No, it needs to be that dissatisfaction with our own lots, lives or situations where we get pissed and think, “No more senseless autopilot… there’s got to be something better out there…”  Or in the words of on-the-edge news anchor Howard Beale in the video above, you need to say “I’m a human being, goddammit! My life has value!”

Because when you get to that point of being dissatisfied, you suddenly improve the opportunity for a change to really occur.  Really and truly to happen.  The alternative is to just feel that nothing will ever improve and whatever you are experiencing at this moment is just as good as it’s going to get.  Is that what you want?  I don’t want that for me and I certainly don’t want that for you.

So the next time you feel that gnawing sense in your gut that you should be able to have something better… there should be more than what is immediately in front of you… don’t stifle it out as a kneejerk reaction and don’t feed it as anger for the sake of anger.  Both are senseless and can be destructive (or in Stars Wars, lead to the path of the dark side).  Instead, let’s make it that extra push to shake us from our complacency and get a little more for ourselves, our families, our friends and anyone else we care about.

The present may be tough, but since the only constant in life is change… why not make that work for us?  We’re human beings.  Our lives have value. And settling belittles all of us a little bit at a time.

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Choking On Our Own Rage

Human beings are some fairly opinionated critters.  I don’t think you need to check out a documentary on National Geographic to figure out that piece of wisdom, but that also doesn’t make it any less true.  We have opinions and dagnabbit, we are going to foist them on each other whether we like it or not… so like it, damn it!  For instance, I am of the opinion that there was no logical reason to use the Leave-It-To-Beaver-esque “curse” of dagnabbit followed by damn it in the same sentence.  But that’s a point I can only really debate with myself and what fun is that?

No, the real “fun” seems to lie in the intersection of opinions in the marketplace of human ideas.  This is actually a fairly worthy endeavor in many cases.  Sometimes you need the white-hot crucible of public debate to test theories and produce the best ideas.  Think the debate around the creation of U.S. Constitution and such.

But there are times when debate goes beyond passion and falls into a realm I can only describe as thinly veiled (if veiled at all) rage.  And you know where I tend to see it most?  When people debate about training and exercise.  Seriously.

The level of base, demeaning and utterly horrifying interaction that occurs when disciples of different exercise camps engage each other on the Internet (home of all discourse, both civil and decidedly uncivil) is just flat-out silly.

It’s incredible because the opposing sides are people who are passionate about health, fitness and performance… oh but WOE UNTO THEE WHO WOULD BLASPHEME MY ONE, TRUE HOLY TRAINING METHODOLOGY!!!!  The next thing you know, it’s the fitness equivalent of Richard the Lionhearted versus Saladin for the soul of Jerusalem.

I get passion and admire those who have it in their lives for something, but the point at which the passion is just fuel for rage?  Count me out for one very simple reason: I see physical training as a part of the overall development of each of us as complete human beings, so if you are red-faced screaming (literally or figuratively) about some fitness point, you have basically sold out on the mind or spirit parts of who you are.  That’s an utter waste and serves no purpose but to more firmly entrench you in a place where dogma rules and you spend your days creating heretics… in a topic that is about becoming better and healthier.  Re-read that dichotomy for a minute and let that marinade in your gray matter.  Kind of leaves you fuzzy, right?

We can all embrace our own personal passions, especially when it comes to things that improve our lives.  We should really find one or two areas where we can throw ourselves in with wild abandon for the sheer joy of it and enjoy coming out better on the other side.  Let’s just be mindful that our joy may not be someone else’s… and choking on our own rage over that fact produces little else besides a gag reflex, regret and a big slice of missed opportunity pie.  And that’s some bitter dessert, my friends.

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The B.S. of Busy

Let me ask you a very simple questions, my friends.  How much of this sounds eerily familiar to you:

“Yeah, I’m just SO insanely busy right now.  I just don’t have any time to…

  • Eat better/cook at home
  • Read more
  • Go to the gym
  • Go church/pray/meditate/think
  • Spend more time with my family/friends/alpaca herd
  • Finish that epic poem that would make Homer look like a complete and utter poser
  • Knock off that home improvement project”

It’s a pretty familiar refrain, no?  I can see a few of my own lines interwoven amongst that particular list.  Our lives are incredibly frenetic these days as we seek to balance work, family, hobbies, friends and maybe even sneak in a few moments of welcome solitude where we do nothing but appreciate the silence.  Ohhh, if only there we more hours in the week!  THEN we could make some magic happen.

One problem: we’re totally kidding ourselves and doing a damn fine job of it, I might add.  We have completely bought into the notion that we are unable to do any of the noble items listed above because of time.414314_3382676527306_1281256846_3291588_1565812469_o

What do you mean, I’m not busy? Look at all that freakin’ paper! Paper = busy!  Sheesh…

I think I’ve had this occur to me before, but an article from the Wall Street Journal really brought it home for me.  Laura Vanderkam wrote a wonderful piece called “Are You As Busy As You Think?” where she brings up some thought-provoking data on how much time we truly spend working, sleeping, eating and so on.  Many people will talk about 50, 60, 70 hour work weeks, but apparently the data does not back up the quote figures.  We tend to inflate because… hey… we’re competitive and we can’t be seen as less busy than the Joneses, right?

But here is where Ms. Vanderkam’s piece gets real.  She writes:

Instead of saying “I don’t have time” try saying “it’s not a priority,” and see how that feels. Often, that’s a perfectly adequate explanation. I have time to iron my sheets,

I just don’t want to. But other things are harder. Try it: “I’m not going to edit your résumé, sweetie, because it’s not a priority.” “I don’t go to the doctor because my health is not a priority.” If these phrases don’t sit well, that’s the point. Changing our language reminds us that time is a choice. If we don’t like how we’re spending an hour, we can choose differently.

Ouch.  Come on now… don’t tell me I’m the only one who felt that one sting a little bit.  How many things have I said I couldn’t do because I was just too busy, when in reality, I was just saying they weren’t a priority for me.  More than I want to think about.

This is a big reason why I get frustrated with people who tell me over and over about how they want to exercise, get in shape, etc.  The typical pushback I get is about time and being too busy… but I know it’s not that, in the end.  It’s just that 5 other things are much more important to them.  And those could be legitimate things for certain, but it’s just a matter of what you will deem to be important, much more so than just time.

So it’s time to rethink the time rationale, my friends.  I’m going to try her test by switching every statement of “I don’t have time for…” with “It’s not a priority…”  I can’t lie – not sure if I’m going to like the results, but who said attaining self-knowledge was all rainbows, sparkles and puppies?  I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Nietzsche, but it has been a while since I’ve read “Beyond Good and Evil” so I could use some brushing up.  Maybe that sneaky bastard snuck it in there without my noticing.

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The Potential of Potential

Our Potential by Hugh MacLeod
Our Potential by Hugh MacLeod

I wanted to get out a quick thought this AM that was inspired by the cartoon above from the always excellent Hugh McLeod at gapingvoid.com (I own one of his prints and it hangs proudly in my home office as a little reminder to myself to fight the status quo).  If you haven’t checked out his site, you owe it to yourself to do so.

Potential is a funny thing… we all want it for ourselves, as we should.  We want to know that there is a limitless amount of possibility for ourselves and where we choose to take our lives.  However, potential has an interesting flip side to it when it comes to our own personal potential… the longer we have it without it being fulfilled, the worse it really is.  Then it becomes a reminder of what we could do, but haven’t.  Ugh.

It’s as if potential was an empty vessel of some kind and the larger it is, the more chance we have to fill it… but if it stays empty or barely filled, it just get dusty and disappointing.  It’s there to be filled.  It’s meant to be filled… or at the very least, the attempt to fulfill on its promise must always be engaged.

Before anyone thinks I am taking a good thing and looking only at its ugly side, I’m actually not being a pessimist here.  Instead, I seek to jab all of us in the side with a reminder that potential is a great thing, but a massive amount of unfulfilled potential due to lack of interest, desire or just plain hard work will always pale in comparison to someone who may have less, but dagnabbit, gets after it with fervor. And each of us never truly knows how big that vessel of potential is, do we?  Isn’t it better to put your head down, kick ass and see where the limits may be?  I’ve long had the suspicion that it’s not finite, but grows as we do…

There is also another very positive side to the concept of potential and this is less about your own personal abilities and gifts and more about what life can offer you.  In that sense, I know there is no upper limit to what can be.  The opportunities to try things, do things, see things and experience things is pretty much limitless.

So therein lies the battle cry for each of us (and definitely for me… remember people, I write this just as much to kick my own behind into action as yours): If we can each keep pushing the bounds of our own personal potential and life will always offer us limitless potential, then bringing those two things together is about as perfect a marriage as you can get.

In the words of two of the greatest poets of our time… Salt-n-Pepa, obviously… push it.  Push it real good.

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The Intelligence of Hard Work

Certain things in life will always stick out in your mind, irrespective of when they happened.  I’ve never been able to figure out why I remember certain things or events with the utmost clarity and yet can’t remember at all something from the day before.  Whatever flips that switch, I have no idea, but it would be cool to find out more about it.  In that vein, I always remember a conversation I had with a few guys in college, I think around my junior year.

I had the reputation for being the studious one and probably with good reason.  I never skipped a class in my entire college career… except for one time… and that was so I could do work for a different class.  It was just how I operated since I was very single-minded in my focus to get the best possible grades to help me get into the best possible law school.  Anyway, the topic of grades, studying and intelligence came up and two of these guys said to me, “You know, Kuz… it’s not that you’re really any smarter than either of us.  It’s just that you study more.  I’m sure if we studied that much we would do just as well.”

Even today, some 19 years later, that STILL makes me laugh and shake my head in disbelief, for the simple reason that it’s just a cop-out for being mediocre.

Sound harsh?  Perhaps… but it’s something I continue to see or hear about today in a variety of contexts.

“Well, I would look as good as Sally if I spent that much time in the gym and was that strict about my eating…”

“Sure, Larry is moving up in the company… but hell, I could do that if I was a workaholic like him…”

Now, if you are comfortable with who you are, please don’t let me try and convince you to be otherwise.  It’s really not my place and I’m a firm believer that each of us has the freedom to pursue whatever path in life brings us the greatest happiness and inner joy, provided that walking such path doesn’t harm others around you.

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But I can’t believe the extent to which people will shake off the commitment, drive and passion of others as being seemingly nothing and if they worked as hard as that person, they would be in the same place.  Here’s the problem with that thinking: If you don’t put in that work, you’re just not the same.  You’re not… and no amount of patting yourself on the back with notions of “If I only did X…” will change that… unless you starting doing whatever X may be.  This is a line of argument that places some vague, hazy notion of “potential” far above working to get someplace.  Potential… in the end… is more of a nice notion and all it means, in the end, is something great that has not been fulfilled as of yet.

Potential is a great thing to have… but only for a very, very small window.  Hanging onto potential too long just becomes a disappointing case of “What could have been…”

None of us has to be like gym rat and diet freak like Sally or work-’round-the-clock like Larry.  We each get our choices and if you choose a different path, more power to you.  I am in full support of that with all my heart.

But the point at which we seek to tear down those who have chosen their own path with notions that we could each reach that too it IF ONLY… then we not only discredit their passion (a horrible act in my book), but we also look to soothe ourselves with a balm of settling for mediocre and explaining it away as if it were acceptable because we could easily get to that place too.  That’s justifying something average.

I don’t come at any of this from a place of cockiness or arrogance – just from knowing that nothing good is achieved or worthwhile without some hard work to get there.  I am far from perfect and would never, ever describe myself as the purest paragon never-ending, ceaseless hard work… but I do work pretty hard for what I believe in.

Remember… the crime is not in picking your own path, but in making that of another who pursues theirs with drive seem like something anyone could do.  I’ve caught myself in this trap a few times before, but with some awareness now, I will battle hard never to do it again.

“We could get your grades, Kuz, if we just studied as much as you do…”  But they didn’t.  And hard work is an intelligence all its own.

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Unconditional Confidence

One of the things I love most about reading is there’s always a chance I will have an epiphany or maybe even a more run-of-the-mill moment of clarity. It’s part of the adventure of reading a book, magazine, blog,cereal box or one of those uber-cool ancient scrolls from ages long past. Not that I stumble across many scrolls… or any. Point still stands.

One of my current reads is the book "Zen Golf" by Dr. Joseph Parent.  Dr. Parent is a PGA instructor who is also a Ph.D.in psychology and a student of Buddhism to boot. That’s a pretty full resume for anyone you can name.  The book, as its title so aptly suggests, is about using the fundamental teachings of Shambhala warriorship (a spiritual companion to Buddhism) to become a better golfer and also improve your own life in the process.

Zen Golf

I’m digging this book. No, seriously…

One section in particular has piqued my interest – it’s entitled "unconditional confidence"… and yes, it is in all lower-case ’cause that’s how those who are one with the Zen roll. Or e.e. cummings. Either, or.  Anyhoo, Dr. Parent writes:

Unconditional confidence arises from connecting with our basic goodness.  We believe in ourselves as decent people and in our golfing skills for our level of play.  This doesn’t mean we expect to hit every shot perfectly.  It does mean we can handle whatever the result is.  With unconditional confidence, our self-worth as a human being doesn’t depend on how well or poorly we strike a golf ball.  We see our nature and our abilities as basically good and the difficulties we encounter as temporary experiences.

As soon as I read that, I couldn’t help but expand it well beyond the boundaries of the game of golf.  How can you not expand it? It’s so apparent to hundreds of activities we undertake each day.

It’s all-too-often the case if we doing something wrong, mess something up, miss our exit on the highway, or hit a truly poor golf shoot, it becomes so much more than just a moment of error that should slide gently by without much thought.  Instead, we often lapse into something like “Oh my God… I’m such a moron… how could I be so freaking STUPID?!?!?”  We go beyond it being a simple event and it instead becomes a referendum on our worth as a person.

What’s so troubling about this is how easily it happens.  Right there… blink of an eye… BOOM!  Event happens and our instantaneous reaction (or at least mine, more often than I care to think about sometimes) is to judge ourselves on a far more serious and permanent basis than could possibly be merited.

This is, of course, utterly ridiculous and Dr. Parent nails it.  If we molded ourselves more into the form of a person exercising unconditional confidence, we recognize that we are good at our core, momentary errors are just that and we always can move beyond them to a better state.  Notice that unconditional confidence DOES NOT equal irrational confidence.  The former is how you bounce back because you believe in yourself… the latter is an artificial construct where we are only looking to kid ourselves into belief.  That’s sort of like the prizefighter who talks a gigantic amount prior to a huge fight to psyche himself into belief.  I think that’s a fool’s errand, at best.

So perhaps we can all take a lesson from a book on golf to be a little bit more about life.  We are good at our base core and the less we become clouded with temporary passing moments and believe in a larger sense of our intrinsic value as a person, the better we will be… and we might even end up as better golfers in the process.  Or so I am hoping for me.