Category: Self

I abruptly halted my stroll through the shopping mall to gaze in wonder at a very large, very pregnant woman bouncing repeatedly on a bungee swing.

Quickly summoning my seventh grade math skills, I calculated that the repeating force and velocity upon her body could momentarily launch an unanticipated sequence of events. At each vertical bounce, I expected the abrupt squeal of a tiny baby’s voice, propelled into birth with the aid of gravity and a giant rubber slingshot. No forceps necessary for this delivery, thank you.

The bounding continued, but I didn’t want to stick around for the spectacular gravitational outcome. Instead, having empathetically sensed my own need for additional anti-gravitational support, I made my move to the men’s underwear department at Macy’s.

One thing was for sure. She owned this athletic event. In the category of Very Pregnant Women Bouncing on a Slingshot, there were no other competitors in the mall. Or, probably, in the entire city.

Recently, a friend asked me if I would consider speaking at a small seminar. He listed several topic options to consider, and he asked me which of the topics I felt that I “owned”.

Huh. I’ve never felt I am a particular expert at anything. That’s the trouble with being a utility player. Send ‘em to left field, or catch, or play third base for half an inning. It doesn’t matter much. They’ve got just enough skill to last for a few minutes. The “real” player will be back as soon as he gets that thumb taped.

To really own something requires an obsessive compulsive streak. That’s laudable. It might not even matter so much what is owned; such a person is driven to own something. The Guinness Book of World Records is full of the bragging rights of those who own a record, no matter how obscure or inane the event.

Owning no particular event makes a person feel downright…well…average.

However, come to think of it, being successfully “average” requires its own skill set—persistence, compassion, integrity, harmony.

Being obsessively compulsive might get your picture on a Wheaties box.

But being the best “average” might just get you through life better.

Okay. Got it.

I don’t know anything about slingshot bungee baby deliveries.

But do I know anything about being average? Oh, yeah! I own that gig!

Being successful entails making changes: new mindsets, new goals, new promises. Like the ever-increasing bottle sizes on display at California’s Niner Wine Estates near Paso Robles, they are new, improved versions. Each one is bigger and better than the one before. Obsolete systems and old versions that have grown clunky become obsolete.

The personal computer industry is replete with examples. 

The evolution of the great cats began with Cheetah, at least according to Apple. Every so often, this computer company convinces its users that its software operating system, with each successive version named after one of the great cats, has morphed into a newer, more powerful version of its former self. Cheetah begat Puma, which began Jaguar, followed by Panther, Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard, and Lion, soon to be followed by Mountain Lion. If this keeps up, I am concerned for Apple. One evolutionary cycle too many, perhaps not long from now, and they will run out of cat names. I fear Feral Cat could be the final, dissatisfying version of their evolutionary software.

They could, of course, begin a new evolutionary track for their software updates. Invertebrate sea animals might be catchy. This tactic would lead them to fearsome and memorable creature names such as Giant Squid and Giant Octopus. But where would they go from there? Cuttlefish hardly inspires software prowess, suggesting instead a soggy romantic embrace. Starfish could pass muster, but after that, there’s no where to go but down. Eventually, Apple would wind up with versions called Sea Biscuit, Sea Worm and Sea Snail. It’s difficult to imagine software geeks hovering over their Starbuck Frappuccinos comparing the outrageously cool features of Apple’s latest Sea Slug operating system.

Better find a different evolutionary trail to follow.

No matter what they are called, when old systems become outdated, they need to be replaced. Times change. Needs change. Strategies change.

Likewise, newer versions of our lives should evolve. How long has it been since we’ve rolled out the next version of the personal operating system governing our lives, employing new mindsets, new goals, new promises.

At a recent conference I attended, I realized that I was probably the oldest guy in the room. I also recognized that my function and purpose had changed. No longer was the activity centered around me; it was all about them. They were the team. I was a cheerleader of sorts, older, more experienced. Simply being there—showing up—helped give credence to the others that this event was, in fact, worth doing. I had entered into a newer version of the expectations governing my life’s operating system.

We need updates to the long-ago life goals scratched in our high school year books. Perhaps we’ve been running Operating system Sophomore beyond its intended useful life. To re-tune our current endeavors and re-think our future plans, maybe it’s time for a system upgrade to discover the next version of our bigger, better selves.

In retrospect, it probably wasn’t the best time for me to enter the candy and soda pop store, just when Mega-Stretchfabric Man was on the prowl, examining the goods and consuming the high-calorie, caffeine-injected junk food lining the shelves. The store was being held hostage by this super-villain gone bad. He is a superhero gone astray, a powerful force who used to advocate for a the low fat, low sugar lifestyle. Not any more.

But still, he’s Mega-Stretchfabric Man. He can do as he pleases.

What happened to him can become the fate of any one of us when we pursue destructive, self-indulgent behavior. In our own thinking, we can do no wrong. All is justified.

We can easily list political leaders, spiritual leaders, bankers, business folks, even physicians who have, over time, become their own version of Mega-Stretchfabric Man. They’ve fallen.

Somewhere on that list we can probably add our own name because change can happen gradually. Self-interest seeps in, drowning our nobler aspirations. We can all fail to live up to our aspirations.

Slowly we devolve, morph, change into that which we do not wish to become–and we may become our own version of the irritating, crimson-suited, Mega-Stretchfabric Man, an unwelcome transformation that is apparent to everyone else but ourselves.

But hold on. The End has not arrived. Remember, in Comic Book Land, there are heroes to counterbalance every villain’s influence. Every hero has equally powerful choices to make to turn things around. Heroes conquer one thought, one action, one attitude at a time.

Put on your stretch suit, hero. We’ve got work to do.

In 1865, perhaps the homeliest of all American presidents died. He was also possibly the most capable, brilliant and beloved man who has lived in the White House. At 6 feet 4 inches tall, he was impossible to ignore, and socially awkward by all accounts. 

He was a man of exceedingly humble origins, and he never forgot it. He was the third president to die in office.

In the same year that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, Warren G. Harding was born. He grew into a man of striking appearance. In stark contrast to Lincoln’s physical ugliness, he was described as “more than handsome.” “His suppleness, combined with his bigness of frame, and his large, wide-set rather glowing eyes, heavy black hair, and markedly bronze complexion gave him some of the handsomeness of an Indian.” “His voice was noticeably resonant, masculine, warm.” “His manner…suggested generous good-nature, a wish to give pleasure, based on physical well-being and sincere kindliness of heart.”

In the deadlocked Republican Convention of 1920, supporters of the two leading candidates were forced to find a compromise presidential candidate. They landed on the sixth candidate in the field of six, choosing Warren G. Harding because he looked so much the part of a president.

In contrast to Lincoln, Harding is widely considered to be one of the worst American presidents. His speeches were “an army of pompous phrases moving over the landscape in search of an idea.” His merely average intellect appeared overwhelmed by the rigors of the job. His administration was riddled with scandal and corruption.

He did not have the chance to complete his disastrous first term. Two years into his presidency, Harding suddenly died from a probable heart attack. He was the sixth president to die in office.

We live in a day in which we are encouraged to set great goals by stretching our wings wider, achieving ever more significant accomplishments. We are told that if we believe in ourselves and try hard enough, we can attain anything, whether pushing for that job promotion we believe we deserve, or hoping to gain the recognition of a hard-fought achievement.

That may all be well, but sometimes that “anything” we are encouraged to accomplish at great personal expense might be best left for another. Like Harding, we could be extending ourselves beyond our gifting and flirting with disaster–in Harding’s case, overreaching beyond his abilities may have caused his heart to finally give out.

Perhaps it is better to do lesser things with greater excellence, to know the limits of our reach, to recognize and accomplish that which is truly within our ability and scope to do, and to do it well.

Maybe we’ve been “Harding-ized” just a bit–to believe the hype that there is more importance about ourselves than we are given credit for, so we pursue a never-ending, impossible quest to rise to the top.

There’s something to be said for recognizing and living within our own abilities. It’s better to be remembered for who we are–not for how we’re perceived.

I’ve always wanted to be a leader. I mow the lawn and take out the trash. I pay the bills. I’ve fed the dog and picked up the poop, just like a good leader should.

But I’m no leader.

I know this because I’ve been reading blogs about the subject. I’m finding out that true leaders can write and master multi-step action plans that make them superhumanly productive. They select and nourish positive, reinforcing team members around themselves. They demonstrate unequalled zest for adventure in their personal lives. Their professional success generates surplus income sufficient to spawn multiple non-profit organizations.

Does that describe me? Nope. I’m an un-leader. Here are some blog-harvested leadership skills I haven’t quite mastered:

• How to be a responsive person
• How to train my brain
• How to become a better communicator
• How to say “no”
• How to promote myself
• How to become a champion
• How to build my own “platform”

…oh…and this one…

• How to not feel overwhelmed

See?

I’m an un-leader because I can’t shrink my to-do lists; instead, they keep growing.

I’m an un-leader because realists are less popular than idealists; they don’t draw much more of a following than flies.

Bzzzzzzz.

It’s a defining moment. We enter a training seminar, a classroom or a dinner party.

Where should we sit?

If we feel high in the pecking order of attendees, we’ll glad-hand folks as we arrive, asking a nonchalant, “How are you?” without waiting for responses. We take a place near the front of the room, expecting a high level of involvement.

The back of the room is reserved for those who are either anxious at the proceedings, expect to be bored, or both. Early on, these seats become crowded; these folks can gauge their degree of participation after performing extensive reconnaissance.

That leaves the “somewhere in the middle” seating, occupied by those who are either, (a.) front row want-to-bes who can ride the coattails of the super-confident sitting just before them, (b.) the last row want-to-bes who didn’t get there quickly enough, or (c.) the folks in the accidental middle ground, who must sort out how visible to be and how much obligatory conversation to generate.

It’s hard for those of us occupying this ill-defined, middle section to know how to behave. Nonetheless, it should be familiar to us because, in fact, most of our lives are spent here. We define mid-turf–we’re average folks among other average folks.

In this midsection, insecurities may filter out sentences, paragraphs, and entire conversations. Brains can become muddled over whether we are being sincere and who we really are meant to be. If we’re not careful, we can become observers, life passing us by.

I occupied this sizeable Middle Ground while attending college; no escape seemed possible.

Until, that is, I vowed to redefine the anonymous Middle Ground by seizing the opportunity afforded within the vast thrice-daily meal lines crowded with students awaiting cafeteria service.

I decided that each time I waded amidst my fellow students while in the meal line, I would intentionally meet the one person ahead and the one behind me in the queue. And I would allow myself to only talk about them—not me.

After a few months of doing this, I discovered one important thing.

The undervalued Middle Ground may offer the best seat in the house.

I’m riding home on the train as usual: head bobbing, checking e-mail on the iPhone, reading a book until drowsiness sets in and the terror of missing my stop brings me to abrupt attention. I take inventory of my fellow passengers. The neck of the Cordon Bleu-uniformed chef-in-training strains at a crazy angle, his head bobbing in sleep. A couple and their four young kids occupy two booths, the kids sprawled in sleep, their dozing father’s mouth hanging agape, framed by a dark goatee.

The fellow facing me, sitting one row ahead, works his laptop computer and phone intermittently. Something glistening on his lower lip draws my attention. Gradually, the glistening stuff grows, forming a tiny pond of bubbles where the top and bottom lips meet.

Then he inhales. The tiny bubbles disappear.

He exhales, and the pond of white bubbly froth grows again, this time larger. Stealthily, I watch as the glistening glob threatens to grow large enough to descend from lip to chin and splash upon his computer’s screen. Surely, he knows of the threat; he’s not even asleep!

He again sucks in his breath. The spittle disappears in a tug-of-war against gravity. For thirty minutes, the battle rages unabated.

I steal a photograph, diverting his attention by imitating video game maneuvers on my iPhone. But it’s tough capturing moving spit on a bounding train while ducking the occasional roving eye of The Spittle King. I capture the mere glisten of the froth.

It all seems so normal to him, this spit-balancing act. Is he unaware of the gag-inducing display? A wedding band encircles his finger. Surely his spouse has attempted to set aright this dismaying demonstration of salivary locomotion!

It’s my train stop. No need to leave the show; it’s also The Spittle King’s stop. I wait for him to exit the train before me. I follow him, examining the pavement for wet, glistening bubbles in his trail.

As I turn toward home, I wonder what sort of King I myself might be. My own ingrained habits are invisible to me. But to the neighbors in my life, they glisten, distract and annoy.

Time to start the inventory.

The rainy, blustery weekend finally yielded to an azure sky during a recent camping trip, though camping is hardly the word. Gargantuan recreational vehicles, buses commandeered by graying couples and their miniature pooches, dwarfed our tiny fold-up trailer, which disappeared into their neighboring shadows. But we were living the high life: full connections to water and electricity—and a porta potty.

When the sun eventually broke through, we headed for the hot tub, where I soaked until my wrinkled skin steamed. Then it was off to the pool to attack a few of the exercise laps I had deferred for years.

As I descended the steps into the water, an elderly man bisected my anticipated lap lane. He was swimming sideways, across my lane. Not only that, the lane stripe was painted across the pool. But why?

Adjusting to the altered terrain, I heaved my trunks, and me with them, to join the sideways-swimmer. With my crosswise laps accomplished, my curiosity wouldn’t subside. So I paced, or rather bounced along the bottom of the pool, measuring the length and width of the pool with my stride. I discovered the pool was actually perfectly square. The rest was optical illusion. The lane stripe could have been painted either direction with equal merit. Which direction to swim? Lengthwise, at right angles to the older guy, or with him, across the pool? It didn’t matter. Same distance.

The illusion gave voice to a struggle that had been rising all weekend: what was a youngish guy like me doing hanging around this generation of RV-commandeering oldsters? The pool lanes described my dilemma. I was out for a brisk, youthful pool-length lap workout. Instead, an old guy drifted lazily, blocking my swimming lane, and I fell in behind him. Where were the high-energy folks my age that I could hang with? Our youthful, tiny trailer was buried amid hulking, slow-moving diesels with scarcely a non-wrinkly face within sight.

That evening, on our way to the restroom, we paused to view the RV resort’s neighboring meeting room, reserved for social gatherings. It was packed with oldsters, chatting convivially around tables bedecked with emptying wine bottles. One of the partygoers beckoned us to come in. Warily, we cracked open the door.

“Come on in!” she invited. “It’s a birthday party! For all of us! None of us wants to admit our birthday anymore, so it’s a birthday for nobody and everybody!”

Oldsters again. Where were the hip RV’ers our own age? We couldn’t get away. We seated ourselves beside the couple that invited us in. The wine bottles emptied as the guests intermittently nibbled on chocolate birthday cake soaked with melting vanilla ice cream.

We exchanged pleasantries with the older couple that invited us in. Where were they from? Where did they meet? Where did they go to college? Gradually, our swapped stories filled in the details of our lives.

Within minutes, lightning struck. In one of those rare lifetime moments you experience with someone you’ve never met, we realized our lives intersected. With a start, I discovered that I was talking to the sister of a girl I went to college with! In Chicago, in the 1970s.

And that meant that the older-looking woman I was speaking with, along with a good many other folks in the room were roughly—my own age!

In some ways, we will always miss our past, our youth. But we also know that we really don’t want to live that uncertainty and stress all over again.

We don’t belong there, but we’re not sure we belong here, either: older, among these older people. Is this really who we have become? At moments like these, we’re not sure how to go forward. Can we muster the courage to become like these people?

Ah, yes, I realize…I already am one of “these people.”

Maybe all of us are most comfortable when we reckon ourselves neither young nor old. Someone’s always behind, but someone else is also ahead of us. We’re always just arriving, always capable of, and ready for–change.

So which way do we swim the laps in the pool? Lengthwise, as we did since we were young? Or sideways, joining the older generation?

It turns out that they’re the same distance. Remember, the pool is square.

I think I’ll swim the diagonal.

A remarkable face stared at me from an isolated garage window behind a dilapidated apartment complex. It gaped from behind bars, forlorn and hopeless. His impassive and imprisoned gaze locked onto the outside world.

This is Buster Keaton, icon of the motion picture industry in its infancy. The icy stare and cocked hat are borrowed directly from a scene in Keaton’s 1921 movie, The Goat, in which Keaton’s face is substituted on a “wanted” poster by a clever escaped convict, thereby managing to conceal the criminal’s own identity.

Stop the press!

Closer scrutiny of the artwork reveals far more. Gradually, we come to recognize the form of the face, the sculpted nose and the overdrawn eyes. They don’t belong to Keaton. Had the artist drawn a single glove on one hand, we would recognize that this is Michael Jackson gazing out at us!

Usually, most of us don’t feel imprisoned.

But standing before a mirror, sometimes we can see an image resembling one or both of our parents, or grandparents, peering back at us.

I wonder who else is?

Each work day, I walk two miles each way to and from the train station to catch the Metrolink to El Monte, where I teach students at the parole office. So listening to the rhythm of the train tracks has become an unexpectedly big part of my life.