Door Number One was not my choice. Mom and Dad opened that one, my birth launching me into this world. Door Number One was all shock and some dismay.
Door Number Two was all about me. It was about my independence from those Door Number One parents. I chose my friends, dreamed impossible futures, fell in love, and found a career—actually, several of them. Later, I discovered it was also about others—my kids, my aging parents, and my friends. Lots of responsibilities and lots of decisions.
Door Number Four is the last door—the end of the trail and the beginning of the greater, Eternal Trail. A life well-lived finds its peace in God, beyond Door Number Four.
Wait a minute. Back up. I skipped Door Number Three. Door Number Three is the journey connecting Door Number Two with Door Number Four. It’s the door of today. It’s the door of now. It’s the door that lets in the neighbors. It’s the door that stoops to serve, and stands to acknowledge. It’s the door of endless, life-injecting possibilities.
At each morning’s dawn, Door Number Three awaits my choices, allowing each day to become an expectation-filled, God-pleasing pursuit.
Neon signs are made of tubes which can be bent to create graphic images or letters. When electricity runs through them, their light can create bold statements.
They may direct us to explore a used auto dealership’s well-worn wheels where we could hope to stumble across a treasure. Or, imagine the red outline of a cross, beneath it, in gaudy, bold fluorescent turquoise, “Jesus Saves”. Down the alley, we may spy a flashing pink arrow directing toward a dim stairwell; a suggestive woman’s profile beckons downward.
When we were young, our parents tried their best to bend and shape our lives. They hoped to turn our lives, like neon light tubes, into things of beauty. Like all parents with young children, they were amateurs in this light-bending child-rearing project. At some point, they were done. It was up to us to add and shape more beauty into our lives.
Some people are good at doing this. In my old yearbooks, I can show you pictures of those who have done really well for themselves. Their lives are artisan work, really–a neon light panoply of synchronized flashing images in a tasteful palette of colors.
In a small classroom in a dingy part of town, I teach academic skills to folks who have felony records. They haven’t done so well. Their neon light tubes have become twisted, flashing feebly and erratically. A lot of restorative work is required.
In this world of relative luminescence, most of us are somewhere between these extremes. We may lack the peacock-beautiful neon displays of on-off, on-off, with flashing hues of purple and gold that some lives seem to exhibit. But neither are we in total tube-broken neon disrepair. Between these extremes, we have a few lighting flickers here and there, weak spots in need of repair.
Those flashing neon signs–they are intended to provide compelling and directive messages.
I am reminded of a song we sang as children. It goes like this: “This little NEON light of mine, I’m going to let it shine…”
First, seven-time Tour de France victor Lance Armstrong abandoned his quest to clear his name of drug doping charges. For many, this signaled a guilty plea as the capstone to his multi-year efforts to redeem himself in the bicycle sports arena.
A few days later, Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, died following heart surgery. Each time we view that 1969 grainy black and white video clip of his first step on the moon, we pause to consider his courage. And, for many, this humble astronaut’s passing seals his noble legacy.
Two stories of life’s fame and fortune, walked out in very different ways.
At the One Stop Shop for Fame and Fortune, a waiting line encircles the block. Fame and fortune is what we think we want. Come and get it!
Aisle One is the widest and most traveled, where laurels are reserved for sports achievements, a dizzying aisle plumped with the most popular—and obscure—awards available to claim. Of course, there are home run records, and most soccer goals scored. Looking for more exotic fame? Help yourself to an ice bowling (yes, there really is such a thing) or Frisbee golf championship or two. On the cycling shelf, I notice a freshly stocked area listing available records under Tour de France, apparently recently vacated of Lance Armstrong archives.
Successive aisles proffer fame and fortune in order of diminishing popularity…famous clothing designers, lawyers who have made fortunes, bank robbers who have stolen fortunes, fertilization-specializing veterinarians….
Let’s see…how do I want to gain my own personalized fame and fortune? What should I pick?
My curiosity drives me to explore the last aisle in the store. Down the damp and darkening shelves, I pass into the bowels of the most unpopular fame and fortune categories: plumbing, bomb shelter design, trash and refuse collection, whoopee cushion manufacturing. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Not for me, thanks!
Ah, finally! Here it is—the very least popular way to gain fame and fortune. I’m at the very end of the very last aisle. Not much traffic down here. The lonely previous visitor here was probably disoriented, looking for the restroom.
I find the final forlorn shelf—and it’s empty. Above it is a tattered, fading label, which, under the gathering dust reads: “Good Neighbor.” The space is reserved but unstocked. There are apparently no takers—it’s tough to gain fame and fortune at the gig of good-neighborliness. It’s just a shelf, an empty shelf with a note scrawled in fading red ink: “Tried that. Didn’t work out.”
Armstrong want-to-be’s, step right up. Come on in from the cold and take your pick. Come on in to the One Stop Shop for Fame and Fortune.
Remember, there are plenty of choices available on Aisle One, on the shelf marked Cycling: Tour de France.
The ability to walk on water doesn’t quite share the top echelon of human aspirations, such as being able to fly like a bird, travel through time, or (for a girl at least) fit into Cinderella’s glass slipper.
But it’s an ambition that might be up there pretty close to these other passions. After all, the Apostle Peter is reported to have done so—he walked on the water toward Jesus, until he looked down and panicked, losing his faith over what he realized he was actually doing—walking on water!
This video discloses that apparently the freak-out factor can be mitigated by inserted oneself into a plastic bubble and then bouncing out onto the surface of a small swimming pool, thereby approximating the water-walk minus the fear factor. If Peter had simply used an inflatable bubble, he could have spun his bubble all the way to Jesus without the need for faith.
Or, presumably, he just might have kept spinning and spinning like a hamster in an exercise wheel, going nowhere fast.
Remarkably, a short time ago historians unearthed a previously unknown writing by the Apostle Peter. This epistle didn’t make it into the New Testament canon because of its recent discovery. It consists of one chapter, which contains a scant three verses, and was evidently written soon after Peter’s own water-walk experience. Without a formal title given by the Apostle Peter, it is affectionataly referred to as A Dummy’s Guide to Walking on Water. Here, then, is the brief three-verse epistle in its entirety:
Find someone or something that is worth risking everything for.
Decide whether you want to risk everything for that person or thing.
The trouble with paunch is that it appears so gradually, nearly imperceptibly, like dough rising. “No, I’m not gaining weight,” we convince ourselves. “I look the same as I did last week and the week before.”
But when we glimpse a picture of ourselves from a year ago or five years ago, we may see a person we don’t quite recognize.
“That was me?’ we exclaim. “Golly, what happened? I’ve porked out!”
Yup. Porked out. The five or ten pounds can hide beneath baggier clothes for a while. But the arguments to justify our progressively dilapidated appearance have already begun.
I’m told that our behavior works something like this: Cues trigger habits that result in rewards. That’s the habit chain.
We sit down to watch TV–that’s the cue. (Now the brain is on autopilot.) This launches the trigger—go to the refrigerator. Finally, the reward—the almond caramel fudge ice cream. Each time we perform this ritual, the cue-trigger-reward process is reinforced.
Our behavior will only be altered by identifying and removing or modifying the habit chain so that the sequence of events is broken.
Like the grasshopper who paid attention only to his own comfort instead of gathering food for the winter, we choose to maintain the convenience of our unhealthy habit chain.
Here’s the even more uncomfortable part. After the habit chain plays havoc with our lives, and things have gone from bad to worse, a different word describes our behavior.
It’s a scary word that refers to the unwillingness to take advice or correction.
“Familiarity breeds contempt, while rarity wins admiration.” –Apuleius (124 AD – 170 AD)
Last Thursday, on my way home from work, my train missed my stop. Now I could have expected to possibly miss my stop from train-induced slumber, but never have I been on a train that missed a stop.
To be clearer, the train performed its customary stop, but the doors on my car did not open. Unable to disembark, the train soon carried on its way, with us, the unwilling passengers who were unable to disembark, still jammed behind the train’s closed doors. Our station quickly passed behind us.
“Press the black button!” someone from our end of the car yelled to those imprisoned behind the doors at the far end of the car. A yelling chorus soon began. “Press the darn button!”
Someone finally pressed the button, apparently alerting the conductor to our unfortunate dilemma, and the train halted in the No Man’s Land that was neither my stop nor the next stop, but somewhere between. Outside, there were only scrub bushes and the gravelly bed of the train tracks.
Eventually, the voice of the conductor came over the intercom, explaining that we would back up to the wayward station we had passed. But there was no movement for five minutes. Finally, the voice on the intercom again: “We do not have permission to back up. We will continue on to the next stop.”
Mild panic spread through the still-standing passengers. How would they get to their awaiting autos, parked at the train station behind us, quickly receding from view? How long would it take to catch the next train going the opposite direction? With some of the women wearing tortuous high heels, would they be forced to walk back to our distant, intended station?
I decided not to wait to find out. When the train finally halted at the next station and disgorged us like confused tourists, I disembarked and guided a blind fellow traveler to the westward-bound boarding platform of this unfamiliar station. Then I started walking homeward.
Fortunately, this station and my usual station were equidistant to my home; I would later measure both routes homeward to be an identical 1.9 miles.
Like ants on auto-pilot returning to their mound, our well-traveled routes always seem shorter than less familiar ones. Today’s path forced me toward new decisions. The homeward hike seemed far longer because of the choices along the way. Which red light would offer me the shorter wait to cross the street? Would the sidewalk or bicycle path be the more direct route? With no experience to inform me, I followed my heart. A broad wooden bridge stretched before me on the bike path. In the growing dusk, I was all by myself, and I stopped.
Construction workers must have left this wooden bridge for my use alone, at this time, on this day, to service my displaced homeward hike.
To my left, I heard the distant sound of the freeway. To my right, a partially-occupied condo complex waited silently for the arrival of the inhabitants at the workday’s conclusion. In the distance, a train horn heralded the arrival of the westbound train that would return the displaced commuters to their familiar surroundings, ants returning to the mound.
A fallen leaf blowing along the wooden bridge reminded me that there are some choices in life that we are able to select, like a well-worn path home. And there are some that we don’t get to choose, like uncooperative train doors.
And sometimes, the only choice we really have is whether we make a graceful transition between the two.
I’m within ten percent of getting my budget to work. I confirmed this after two frustrating weeks of trying to upgrade to the next generation of personal financial software, which I’m discovering is not so different from the previous generation of my personal financial software. My budget was ten percent bloated on that one, too. I’ve resolved to somehow change my budgetary wandering ways.
I recently patronized the restaurant pictured above, and the revelation I received there could hold the answer to my dilemma. A small table sits in an awkward location connecting two parts of the dining room. The kitchen is adjacent to it. The persistent clinking of glasses and dishware, the murmurs of cooks and waiters, the constant hustle to serve an endless stream of customers, and the discomforting flushes emanating from the neighboring bathrooms conspire to make this a less-than-idyllic setting for a dining experience. To appease customers relegated to this forlorn table, a sign posted above it humanely announces a “Worst Table 10% Off” discount. The waiter affirmed the veracity of this incredible value, and it set my budget-busting wheels a-spinning.
By not snagging this table, I had narrowly missed a way to fractionally reduce my spending. I could have recovered a portion of my ten percent deficit by momentarily putting up with swearing cooks, harried waiters and the flushing of nearby commodes! So…why not redeem this lost opportunity by applying the ten percent reduction principle to all my future expenses, thereby achieving the so-far evasive goal of slashing my budget?
I’ve devised a plan:
Henceforth, I will reduce my job-related transportation expenses by disembarking from my train one stop earlier, thereby reducing my ticket expense by at least ten percent (and, incidentally, increasing my daily walking exercise routine by 15.8 miles).
Henceforth, when giving gifts, I will curtail spending wasted resources on fancy gift-wrap, choosing to use free plastic grocery bags instead. (Oops, I do this already….)
Henceforth, on the same theme, I will reduce by ten percent the actual number of presents I choose to give throughout the year—which will also effectively reduce my circle of friends by ten percent.
Henceforth, I will follow the trailblazing practices of UPS, making only right hand turns in order to reduce fuel costs. Calculating my fuel cost to the grocery store suggests I will save 4.5 cents. (My return trip home, however, will cost $6.32; making all right hand turns will result in traveling an additional 57 miles since I will be led down streets to a neighboring town before I arrive home.)
Henceforth, I will purchase only long-sleeved shirts and long-legged trousers. Over time, as my clothing develops holes in the knees and elbows, the sleeves and pant legs will be unceremoniously lopped off, providing me a breezy-cool summer wardrobe—and save myself the expense of buying summer clothes!
Henceforth, I will rent out ten percent of my house to the ever-increasing populous of neighborhood kids (for which, I will charge them ten percent of my mortgage payment). Their resultant 150 square feet of rental space may be used as they desire: a clubhouse and fort, or perhaps a small, kid-staffed veterinary facility to resuscitate highway-mangled rodents, frogs, and night-traveling marsupials.
I’m so confident in the success of my anticipated budgetary surplus that I’ve hired an investment consultant to handle the increased savings, which, unfortunately, sets my budget back–by about ten percent.
I listened passively to the chatter between two computer geeks about how to keep personal computer data safe and secure. Just as I was tuning out the conversation, they identified two critical principles that go way beyond computer geekdom. I haven’t been able to get these two simple, profound principles out of my head.
Geek Principle #1: Impulse Control
The geeks explained the number one way to guard against Internet virus pirates who steal and corrupt data files is to control dangerous impulse practices. Don’t use easy passwords. Be careful which Internet sites are visited. Share personal information sparingly and wisely to keep yourself safe online.
Geek Principle #2: Proactive Practice
They described Proactive Practice as the consistent application of the Impulse Control principle on an ongoing basis.
Living by these two principles, according to the geeks, will protect us and the environments we care most about: ourselves, our families, and our enterprises. My thoughts? Like a yellow line of demarcation, these principles may help to keep us on the side of the street where we belong.
Now–ratchet the focus from computers to other life issues. How well do we implement these two principles?
The dude throwing trash from the window of his car–how does he think that’s okay? Did it start with a gum wrapper and de-sensitized Impulse Control?
The gradually growing love handles just above my belt. When did my weakened Impulse Control allow food choices and exercise habits to gradually conspire against me?
Temper and impatience can bubble below the surface, barely out of sight. When did I grant access to those treacherous partners to attach to me like remora fish?
But even after I identify the areas where I lack of Impulse Control and try to corral the behaviors that hinder me, the job is only half done.
That’s when I need to apply geek principal #2–Proactive Practice. Consistent vigilance through Proactive Practice will help to keep destructive behaviors on the far side of the yellow line.
