Eyes Wide Open

A couple of weeks ago, I watched the movie, ‘Soul Surfer’. I had seen the beginning of it previously and I generally knew the story of where a teenager loses her arm in a shark attack and then works her way back to being a competitive surfer. I don’t think it got great reviews but any true story of overcoming unbelievable odds is worth checking out. Well, back to the story of me watching the story. I got bored for a moment and flopped down on the couch and started watching this movie from where I quit watching it before. The story was very powerful but I think the part that impacted me the most was the overall process that our heroine went through and how she found the power to move forward. What draws us to stories like this is often the overcoming of overwhelming physical challenges that we can’t even imagine having to deal with. Our bodies can handle so much more than we believe we can and if we look we see this time and time again. I was just recently reminded of Jim Abbot, a major league pitcher for several years who even threw a no-hitter in 1993. He was born with only one arm! Of course it’s not the physical limitations that keep us from our possibilities, it’s how we think. We have to mentally become a new person or perhaps more correctly, we need to find the real person inside and free them from our self-imposed mental limitations.

After recovering from the shark attack, the main character in the movie wanted so badly to get back to what she felt was her most important passion in her life – surfing. She learned to make adjustments so that she could surf with only one arm. Obviously, these were substantial adjustments! Before you knew it she was ready to compete. She jumped right back in and was battling her former nemesis, who wouldn’t cut her any slack even after she lost her arm (we always have to have someone we love to hate). Well the evil nemesis wins and our heroine is shattered, feeling she just can’t do it. She’s a failure and she shouldn’t have even tried. This is where Soul Surfer turns into soul searcher. She has a good friend who is also her Christian mentor that is headed to Haiti to volunteer after the horrible tsunami created overwhelming devastation. She travels with her friend to Haiti to help the needy and of course, she is the one who ends up being helped the most.

There are two big ‘aha’ moments for our surfer girl while she is in Haiti. The first one is recognizing how much we have by seeing how little others have in the world. For me this was probably the most powerful point of the movie. We need to find that ‘attitude of gratitude’ every day. The people we typically compare ourselves to exist only in our mind (where we load them from TV, books and movies). We think we have so little but it’s easy to see that we have so much. It’s easy to believe that we can feel better about what we have if we compare ourselves to those in broken foreign lands but it’s pretty easy if we look at the real lives of others. Everyone has challenges even if they try to cover them all up. We see it all the time where the world is shocked by the news that Hollywood marriages are not what we thought they were. You are best equipped to handle the problems you have because you have the skills to do so. Work to develop that awakening that you have much and if you have much you need to really make the most of the gifts that you are given. This was the realization that our character in the movie came to as well. Her other ‘aha’ moment was when she used the power of surfing to help a little Haitian boy overcome his fear of the ocean. She saw the power of her passion. Surfing was more than competing. It was about surfing more than competing in surfing.

This newfound wisdom gave her the power to get back to her life. She could compete again but now it wasn’t so much about having to beat everyone else but it was more about being the best at what she could do. Of course, with this new attitude she would eventually go on to win which is still done by beating everyone else. She still had to lose first and that demonstrated her new ability to see the world differently. She had now found a way to passionately enjoy what she was doing and winning was only a part of it and if that part was missing there was still enjoyment.

What a great methodology! When we have setbacks in life, whether they be large or small or real or imaged, we follow a method to overcome. We find a way to get past our physical limitations. We recognize how much we have and commit to ourselves to make the most of the gifts that are given. We explore the power of the things we have a passion for, seeing them with new eyes. We follow our life’s passions in ways that give us true joy. I thought it was a powerful reminder of how we should be looking at life when we find ourselves looking at things in a less than perfect way. Thanks Soul Surfer.

It’s all a matter of perspective. If you have a good day or a bad day is simply how you look at it. We all know this but I’m lucky that I have regular reminders once in a while. I set up the vacation of my dreams and I was really excited about it. I’ve dreamed about going to the Caribbean for vacation for over thirty years. When I was in tech school many, many years ago, I looked at some brochures about vacations in Aruba and St Thomas and various other magical and perfect destinations and I fell in love with the idea that it would be a perfect place to go. I did go to Barbados once. It was for work, I was on the island for less than 24 hours, and I had to catch a plane out at 4:00 in the morning. I did get to see the beauty of the ocean and stayed in the most incredible bungalow on the beach. Last fall, I decided it was time to do something about it and make it finally happen. I set up a cruise to the western Caribbean for 7-days and I was pumped. The only thing I was concerned about was being able to get to Florida in the middle of winter because of bad weather. This is a problem sometimes when travelling from Minnesota but since winter never really showed up this year, it turned out to not be a problem at all.

The day we (my wife and I) flew to Tampa was my birthday – quite fitting I thought after wanting to do this for so long. My pal Tim and his wife Karen live in Florida and were going along on the cruise. They picked us up at the airport and we were on our way. It was really cold for Florida as we waited in line at the pier – 49 degrees and windy. It didn’t matter. I knew we were headed for fabulous weather in the ports of Grand Cayman, Cozumel, Belize, and Isla Roatan. If you’ve never been on a cruise, you need to try it – just once. It’s fun and relaxing. As we were boarding the ship they were handing out flyers about the risk of stomach illnesses that we’ve heard about plaguing recent cruise excursions. As someone who doesn’t believe in being sick, I was hopeful that would not be an issue. A month prior to our cruise, a cruise ship had run aground off the coast of Italy – that’s what most people were concerned about. I figured after all that bad publicity; the crew would really be paying attention where they would be driving our ship.

To cut this story a little shorter, after a ‘fun day at sea’ on Day 1, my wife awoke to the first symptoms of a gastrointestinal illness. More symptoms added up throughout the day. I did go ashore but it did have a bit of an impact on our vacation fun. Lu went to the on-board hospital and because of her doing the right thing, she was confined to the cabin for more than 24 hours and she was unable to partake in all the delicious food that comes with a cruise. Just like hospital food at home, the food they give the ‘sickies’ at sea sucks too. We had set up what we figured would be a fantastic shore excursion in Cozumel but of course my wife couldn’t leave the ship. After being sick for a couple days she recovered, they sent the ‘hazmat’ team into our room and we worked to make the best of our ‘vacation of a lifetime’. About a day later, guess who got the virus next? Yeah, it was me. The scary thing was that I was on the other side of Roatan Island when my symptoms began and I knew the worst was yet to come. I had to get on a jeep for the hour drive over the mountains and through the jungle to get back to my home away from home. I made it out of the van before the worst of the symptoms kicked in (think ‘horrible, uncontrollable vomiting’ [sorry!]). Yes, even though you are treated like a leper when you admit you are sick, I still had to do the right thing and report it. So now I was relegated to very bad food and was locked in my cabin. Needless to say, with four days of our seven-day cruise spent dealing with very bad illnesses, it made our vacation of a lifetime less than fantastic but certainly memorable.

After getting home and getting back to work (and still working to get completely well), I shared with my best friend Fred about our terrible ordeal. He felt so bad. He knew how much I had been looking forward to this vacation and all the things that I was going to do. He kept checking back regularly making sure that I was getting better (getting sick on the ship really seemed to lower my defenses to all the sickness that I had been avoiding for years) and every time you could tell how bad he felt with the cruise not turning out the way we had planned.

Here’s the kicker for me. Fred is going through his second battle with cancer. He’s not going to come out on top this time. He is unable to use any more radiation or chemo therapy and is striving to make the best of whatever he has left. He doesn’t focus too much on his challenges which include helping his wife deal with the cancers (2 types) that she is dealing with. Fred’s just happy that feels as well as he does and he’s able to maximize his time with his kids and grandkids. We may get the occasional vacation that goes bad, or an unexpected bill, or some other thing that doesn’t go right, but there’s a lot more right in my world than there is wrong. Making the most of our lives every day is what the focus needs to be. The time for all of us in limited, it’s just that most of us don’t know where that limitation is. We still need to recognize that time is fleeting and we need to make the most of it – even (literally) crappy vacations.

Please take the day to appreciate all you have because you only have it for sure right now.

Sometimes I have to remind myself to take a moment to appreciate the positive changes that have occurred in me. We are constantly changing. We just don’t notice it most of the time as all things flow from day to day. I believe that if we are paying attention to ourselves and our thoughts we are more likely to notice what’s going on and ideally we influence the direction that we are headed in. Yeah, as always, I did something and that got me to thinking.

I’m working on a bit of a remodeling project and I have some drywall to hang in a space will soon be a functional bathroom. I’m not a speedy remodeler. I work in spurts and I need to do a lot of thinking before I dig in to the next task, all the while juggling thoughts about the entire project in the back of my brain. Before I put my trailer away for the season, I hauled all the pieces of drywall that I estimated I would need and put them in my garage. With the lack of snow this year, I could get my trailer back out but I really don’t want to have the hassle so I’d rather think more and screw up less in cutting my materials. The first big sheet I had to put up is the most challenging. It will take almost the entire sheet but I had to cut out a notch for a tiny wall and, most importantly, a 13 inch diameter hole for the ceiling light fixture. I patiently and methodically took accurate measurements and transposed the locations of all the cuts to my fresh sheet of 5/8” drywall. I even made a compass from a piece of scrap wood to get my hole layout just right. I was feeling pretty confident about my work as I make all the cuts. As I lifted up my prepared drywall to work it into place, I realized that it wasn’t right. My cutouts were on the wrong side of the material! The sad thing is that I had reminded myself to take that into consideration. I laid it out in another room and it was obviously on the floor and facing the opposite direction but even after telling myself to rotate everything in my head, I got it wrong. I chuckled. Yeah, I laughed at what I had done. I didn’t cry. I didn’t yell. Most importantly, I didn’t tell myself how stupid I was and how I sucked at being a carpenter. In the old days, I would have been upset – more internally than externally. I would have beaten myself up. I would’ve been reluctant to get back to fixing my mess and once I did get it fixed it would be twice as hard to force myself to take on projects like that again.

Believe me I wasn’t happy that I had just created garbage from what had been completely good building material but I was happy that it wasn’t tearing me apart. I started right away with the “okay, now how do I find the positive part of this?” method. First of all I saw that I had a nice template to verify the accuracy of my measurements. I couldn’t use it for my ceiling because the finish side faced the wrong way but I could check my work and then use it to quickly transpose the cut areas to a new fresh sheet. My initial measurements were quite good although I was able to tweak one of the cut-outs just a little since I had the ‘opportunity’ to do so. I recognized that since both my cuts were on the same side of the sheet of drywall, I was able to save more than half of it and that was enough to prevent me from having to go buy another piece; I get to leave the trailer where it is for now.

The best thing about this ‘oops’ that I created was that I noticed how I dealt with it. I recognized that it wasn’t the end of the world – few things are ever the end of the world. We just think they are. Things happen and how we interpret them make them to be good or bad. If we make them happen (like I did) and they are not what we want, it’s even harder to not see them as bad. It’s not always easy to see things in the best light but when I do, I’m glad I do. That is my whole point of this story. I recognized that I felt better about this scenario than similar scenarios in my past and I appreciate it. Not only am I liking the new me more than the old me, I know this moment of appreciation will help to make an even better me in the future. You see, how we talk to ourselves in time of stress tends to shape who we become.

One of the best pieces of advice I ever received was from my Time Management instructor, Jim Klausen. He stated whenever you make a mistake, instead of berating yourself and calling yourself stupid, immediately say to yourself, “that’s not like me” and in the same way, if you find yourself doing something really well, take the time to state “that’s just like me”. Give your subconscious mind something worthwhile to constantly repeat by saying what you want your mind to hear. Take the time to recognize how far you’ve come from time to time. Reinforce it by saying, “well, of course, that’s just like me!” because it is just like you. Have a great day.

Well, it’s that time of the year again- the first of the year – the time when we all get to start over. Every year that’s the idea of New Years Eve – time to start over. It sure is great for the health club businesses. If you are a member of a health club it may not be your favorite time of the year. For about a month it will be ridiculously crowded. Of course, you know if you just wait it out, most resolutions will die off and you will have your work out place again. Many people have spent part of the last month, especially the last couple of weeks, with family. Sometimes we commit to a ‘life reset’ because we have spent extra time recently with those that are most important to us and we are choosing to re-prioritize our life (some vow to not get that close to family members for at least another year). If you’re not in the retail business, you may have had some extra down time for thinking. Thinking about priorities and what things got out of hand or got forgotten over the last 12 months. For whatever the reason, many of us are thinking about what we should be doing instead of what we have been doing. I don’t think this annual obsession is a bad thing. I think it’s a great thing. The only problem with it is that we don’t do it often enough.

Why do we only think this way once a year? If we only are making ‘course corrections’ once a year, how much more effective could we be if we re-focused on a more regular basis? Are there things that happen in your life that you didn’t know were coming? I suspect so. I think that happens to all of us on a regular basis, so why don’t we make adjustments more often? Sure it takes time and, I know, as soon as we get up to speed in this new year we feel we are going to lose ground if we take the time to change our heading. How far out of whack do we get if we don’t take a moment or two to recheck our trajectory once in a while. If we feel a need to change everything every New Year then perhaps it’s worthwhile to make those changes along the way. The reset button doesn’t only work once a year and then is disabled for the rest of the year. It’s always there for us but we forget about it. Well, more likely, we think it requires a lot of effort to reset everything. Sometimes it does. The longer we wait between resets, the more effort it will take. If we are just a little off course, how hard is that? With that previous idea about the health club, if you quit doing what you intended on February 1st, pressing that reset button in August or November or December can be a bit intimidating. Of course it’s not going to be much easier on January 1st of next year either. If you press that reset button on February 7th or 15th when it’s only been a week or two since your commitment faded, it’s not so bad. Like anything else, it gets harder over time. We just need to get into the habit of resetting whenever we see that it’s the thing that needs doing. When I think of that great, inspirational movie, “City Slickers”, I remember when they talk about having a ‘do-over’ (that’s the inspirational part for me). We forget we can always have a do-over if we need one. Often, we need friends to remind us that we need one and, more importantly, we’re entitled to one because we can’t always see things clearly. Most of the time we need a do-over because we got off track and things got away from us – it happens. Perhaps it doesn’t happen as often if we hit the reset button more frequently.

Maybe the correct New Year’s resolution is to make more resolutions throughout the year, to take the time to see how far off the road I am more often. And when I see that I’m off the road, have more of a willingness to press that reset button and get me heading where I’m supposed to be. I prefer to end my year with recognition that I’ve done pretty well moving in the right direction and I can simply apply my little ongoing adjustments to keep doing what I’ve been doing. I believe there can be a little more satisfaction in looking back and acknowledging the fine tuning that I’ve applied to get me to where I am at the end of the year. Don’t forget, you need to be clear about where it is you want to be headed, to the things that make you happy, before you can be any good at steering towards them. I wish you all the best in finding your way to your perfect life. Have a great year.

Are you someone who is always trying new things? I have to admit that my tendency is to not be that person. I was thinking today how my mom always used to try out things she would come across when she was shopping. Every time Keebler or Nabisco or whoever would come up with a new cracker, it would show up in our house. Let me assure you, I was never bothered by any type of extra food that showed up at our house – a talented eater I have always been! As I thought back, I remembered my brother was the same way. He always showed up with different flavors of soda and candy (remember the ‘Snirkle’?); he wasn’t all that good at sharing but I usually got a taste after much tormenting. I think I was very lucky to have people in my family who were the type to try things out; I don’t think most people are that way. I think you can change who you are over time but I know that I’ve had to struggle at times to be more adventurous.

When I was a kid (many, many eons ago), I would drive my (older) brother and sister crazy when we would go out to eat. It was always ‘a cheeseburger, french fries, and a chocolate malt’. They really rolled their eyes (and worse) when we would get the very rare opportunity to eat out at the steak house. Guess what I ordered? That’s right – a cheeseburger, french fries, and a chocolate shake. They didn’t even have chocolate shakes at the steak house (can you believe it!) so I always had an orange soda as my alternative. Well at least they knew what to order for me if I wasn’t at the table when the waitress came to take our order. They say that we are creatures of habit and I’m sure that is part of the explanation. I have an aunt that for many years would go to the very same restaurant every day for lunch and order the chicken sandwich. I know that I go on stretches where I can eat the same meals for lunch day after day. That does make it easy to plan for my lunches and since they always seem to be cheap lunches, I am saving money. I guess we can rationalize and justify any of our goofy habits or characteristics.

I know that I have changed some things over the years so I’m not quite so predictable. I love to return to places that I really like for vacation but I don’t very often. I have a favorite park to camp at in northern Minnesota but I only get there every 3 or 4 years and the length of my stays are getting less and less. I purposely force myself to explore more and try new places. Believe me; it’s not that hard to try the new stuff as there are so many fantastic places to visit. This year, I went to North Carolina for the first time. Wow! If I had gone to someplace more familiar I know I would have enjoyed myself but I would’ve have missed Lake Lure, the town of Bat Cave, and climbing Chimney Rock and the mountain behind it (my calves did exhibit their unhappiness over the climbing for several days). Yes, some places are like home to me and I need to get back to them from time to time just to really center myself, however, I have grown to love pushing myself to seek out and experience new destinations.

I strive to catch myself when I become too predictable. I look at new styles of clothes and after awhile I actually try them (it’s not always an immediate process); I have found that this can really make a wife wonder what is going on. I also try to very my food tastes – nothing too crazy – just keeping it from being too mundane.

This isn’t any earth shattering, life changing message here, just a reminder to mix things up once in a while so we don’t become stagnant and to appreciate those who have inspired us (or at least, inspired me) by showing how much fun it can be to go out and test the great things the world has to offer us, whether it’s crackers, clothes or mountains.

My sister Judy set a powerful example for me this last August. On August 1st, I received an e-mail from her that stated (and of course, I am paraphrasing): “My friend did something that inspired me. She created a picture everyday of the month of July, modified it creatively to make it a work of art, and sent it out to a group of people. I thought this was so great that I am committed to create a new painting everyday and send it out to my select mailing list.” Attached to this e-mail was an image of a beautiful original water color painting that she had created. It was the first of 31 works of art that was sent to me every single day of August. Can you imagine how excited I was every day to check my e-mail? I must tell you that the first thing that impressed me was just how good of an artist my sister was. Don’t get me wrong, I am not a professional art critic although I was married to a very gifted artist for over 20 years (so I did pick up a thing or two). To me her work passed the most important test – I know what I like and I like this – a lot! Most of her work represented portraits; I thought they were great not because they were technically perfect images like a photograph might be, but they seemed to capture the essence of the subject. I say this without knowing the actual people whose likeness she captured. I know that Judy has been taking painting classes over the years but that doesn’t always translate into being an artist. I was blown away by her creative work and by her commitment to immerse herself into it on a daily basis without missing a day.
There is another piece to this too. As you might guess, anytime someone shares of themselves in their creative work, you get to know them a little more. Whenever Judy and I connect, I devour the opportunity to know her better. You see, Judy is my half sister and I never knew her growing up. I didn’t even know that she existed until my dad died and my mom told me about her so I wouldn’t be shocked when his obituary stated that he had 4 kids, not 3. I had just turned 13 years old. I didn’t meet Judy until about 15 years ago (there’s a cool story about how that happened, perhaps I’ll blog about that someday) and I’ve only met her face-to-face twice although we have great phone conversations from time to time. Whenever she tells me about a movie she really enjoyed or a book that grabbed her attention, I run out and get it and little by little I get to know her better. This cavalcade of powerful, personal artwork helped me connect with her even more.
There is so much power to a personal commitment such as the one Judy embarked on. As the experts say, to be a writer, you must write; to be a speaker, you much speak; to be a singer, you must sing; to be a… well, you get the idea. Immersing yourself in something you are passionate about is the most powerful way to nourish you passions. It forces you to grow, there’s no way around it. Judy stated that in some types of her painting she made great strides, in others, not as much. She was surprised in where she grew and also in where she didn’t. Most impressive to her was looking at the huge collection of art that she created and recognizing that she did it – all of it. She did it in a month – more than she ever did before – in a year – or two years! How often do we make a promise to ourselves that can do so much to push us along? Think of how great we can be if we make a personal commitment to ourselves to nurture and grow the parts of us that we want to see more of.
Here is my last perception about pushing our greatness out of ourselves (that’s what I perceive this type of commitment to be). The more we put out our creativity to share with the world the less we misplace. Let me use my blogging to clarify this point. If I commit to write something to publish every day, my first thought is that I will run out of things to share. Deep down, I know that’s not true. I know this for a couple of reasons. First of all, I have over fifty thousand thoughts run through my brain every day (we all do) and if I pay attention, I can always find one or two worth writing about. Secondly, when you do something on a regular basis, you get good at it. Once you start putting out your creative merchandise to the world, you will become a wizard at creating more. I’m sure of it. When I see something I wish to write about, I let it percolate and I get enthusiastic about it; that’s when I need to share it. I might hang on to it until I get the time to write it down but the longer it hangs in the limbo part of my mind, the more stale it becomes. When it is fresh, right after its birth, that’s when it really needs to come into the world. I was ready to write on this topic two weeks ago. It’s still a powerful idea (I hope) but it’s not as fresh as it was on the 1st of September when I should have written it. As I hold on to powerful ideas that need to be written down, I hog the space that I should be using for new, fresh ideas. Now I have to allocate even more real estate in my mind to store new ideas that I want to ruminate on. Like too many areas of my home, the clutter piles up and it’s harder to see the magic and power of the discoveries that I have begun to pile up. Don’t pile them, share them. Share them while they are fresh and still hold the magic that you saw in them when they were most inspiring. Whether they’re paintings, or words, or music, it doesn’t matter. The magic is that it’s shared through you, through your eyes, through your heart, through your soul. Create the commitment to share you through your passions. It will make the world a better place.

We headed out west for a vacation last week and, like everything else, it got me thinking. As we drove nearly three thousand miles out to southern Utah and back, I pondered all the people that were also on the road and how it’s a wonder that we have as few accidents as we do. The number of people travelling around this country at high speeds is incredible and of course, not everyone is paying complete attention to what they are doing. I had to look out at the incredible scenery as I drove through multiple sets of mountains, along beautiful rivers and forests just to name some of the visions that caught my eye. I’m sure that many other of my fellow tourists were at times mesmerized at similar sights. In addition to the folks paying attention to the same things I was, we know we have plenty of commuters putting on makeup, eating and drinking and who knows what else instead of giving undivided attention to the road. As much as we see people driving crazy (intentionally or not), as an entire group, we do pretty well. For all the millions and billions of inattentive miles we chalk up, the number of trips off cliffs or bumper car accidents are not that many. We all seem to be shocked when we see or hear of a tragic accident – we should be. However, I have to admit I am more shocked by how seldom I see or hear of accidents when I realize just how many potential disasters we see going on every day. As a society, we do pretty darn well.
It’s not just in cars either. That where I see the most potential danger but we face risks all the time. In Utah, we stopped and checked out a beautiful place called, Strawberry Point. It’s an amazing place where you look out to the captivating cliffs and features carved in bright red rock. There are places to climb out on to get dazzling views and make terrific photo ops. It’s almost shocking there weren’t a pile of bodies down in the ravines as you can walk right to the edge and look straight down. There weren’t any railings and almost no warning signs. The first path we were on walking up to it simply stopped at the cliff – it you weren’t paying attention (and yes, we should all be paying very close attention in places like these), you could walk right of the mountain Wile E. Coyote style. There was one sign as you neared one viewing area that simply said ‘CAUTION’. Don’t get me wrong, I love that we can get to magical places like that. I’m just amazed how many people visit places like that and survive, especially when I see how some navigate so poorly in other areas. In most places here in Minnesota, we have so many restrictions and signs, I’m flabbergasted when I go to a place that says, “Go ahead and play around but remember it’s on you if you get in trouble”. Maybe that’s why I expect everyone to crash and burn when the possibility strikes because we seem so overly protective sometimes.
Keep working to be safe, pay attention, and be careful. Also kudos to all of us for getting out and seeing the world and doing a great job of coming home in single pieces. The number of accidents we have pale in comparison to the number that we don’t have – way to go.

I was out for a wonderful bike ride this morning (of course, nearly all bike rides are wonderful). I rode down to a small town called Hampton and back. I always enjoy that ride as it reminds me of when I used to ride to my girlfriend’s house up in Emo, Ontario (Canada) from my home in Baudette, Minnesota. It was a little over 35 miles to her place (it’s crazy the things people do when they are in love) and it was through a pleasant mixture of farm fields and forests. My trip this morning has fewer forests and more farm fields but for whatever reason it gives strong memories. In most of Minnesota, our roads are blessed with wide shoulders, something that I am often appreciative of, especially after spending time out and about in other areas of the country. I was appreciating that this morning, not that there was much traffic. What I appreciated even more was how much room most drivers gave me as they passed. Even though I always stay strongly to the right and often ride almost 5 feet from the car lane, drivers were moving out an additional 5 or 10 feet from the shoulder, giving me an extra wide berth. I certainly don’t feel it’s necessary but it’s nice that others are making an effort to make sure they don’t scare me to death or run me down. Of course, they don’t know how comfortable I am riding along the side of the road so that shows even more courteousness being so considerate. The bottom line is that for me it gives me a sense of a friendly place. Who knows, maybe they are crazy drunks and they all just happen to be swerving to the left just as they pass me but I suspect that’s not the case. Like opening a door for someone – not necessary but certainly appreciated.
As I was noticing how everyone was giving me so much space and thinking how nice that was, I was reminded of what I considered similar thoughts from previous bike rides – people around here seem to wave a lot. To me, that’s really a sign of friendly. Yes, I’ve learned to be an instigator in this waving stuff, most of the time being the first one to toss one out (and I always attach it to a smile) but folks around here certainly appear to be receptive to it and usually are quick to fire right back with hands and teeth. Since I’ve gotten pretty comfortable smiling and greeting others, I have a tendency to toss some of that out when I’m visiting other places. It is not always received as well, often just getting in return a very surprised look (“I don’t know you so why are you trying to communicate with me?”). It hasn’t shied me away from trying though. It used to be that I made sure to tone it down when I was in other places (especially Manhattan) but I now realized that this is part of who I have become so what you see is what you get. I think the key is the ‘being an instigator’ part. It took me a while to always be comfortable with putting my happy self out there but like I said so many people are happy to respond and even in those places where some are more reluctant, I still come across people open to the idea (once they get past the shock).
You probably have more wavers around than you think you do, you just need to get them started. Set your sights on being an instigator – throw a smile and a wave at somebody and see if it sticks. If not, don’t give up. I’m confident you’re going to find more happy responders than angry reactors and even if you don’t, perhaps you will appreciate how terrific you are by recognizing that you are the type of person that goes around making the world a better place. Thanks.

For more than the last week our fine state of Minnesota has been shut down. They couldn’t agree on a budget so they had to close the doors. Everybody’s unhappy about it and all the politicians are on the hot seat (like they should be). Continuously we hear about everyone who is suffering because the state is no longer providing for them like they are supposed to. It does seem to provide an endless array of stories for the news programs and newspapers. It got me thinking about how we grow to view the things in our lives that we get used to and expect to be there, no matter what. I love our state parks and have spent many a night camping in them. I am disappointed that they are closed and feel badly for the people that have planned to be there for vacations and cannot go. I feel mostly for those that came from another state and had no idea that the state of Minnesota would be closed; perhaps they came here for a fishing trip and can’t even buy themselves a fishing license. I also realize the world will not end if I can’t get to a state park right now. Most people that live in the state don’t even use them but many do. I strive to recognize that they are a gift. I appreciate that they exist, but I know that they are a gift that I can choose to enjoy. Many people in the world survive without camping in state parks and don’t even know what they are missing. We can survive just fine without many of the things that are currently not available to us. It may not be as pleasant or enriching but it’s not something that we have to have to exist or even to be happy.
A couple of days ago I was riding my bike on the new trail the runs from my hometown of Hastings out to Spring Lake Park just west of town. They just completed it a week or two ago and I had to check it out. It’s a beautiful ride that takes you past fields of crops and through the woods – I love it. I didn’t propose that we build it. I wasn’t against it – some were. I am going to enjoy it. It’s a gift. It’s a gift that was paid for by our taxes and chosen by our elected officials. I know that some day it may go away and then I would no longer be able to ride on it. I have no idea why but it’s possible. After all, I never thought I wouldn’t be able to head out to my favorite state park for a visit. More and more I come across people walking on the many hiking/biking paths around town that don’t move over and don’t really watch out for their toddlers running back and forth on the trail. Someday someone is going to get hurt and they just might want to outlaw those crazy bicyclists (and there are some of them that are a little crazy or at least irresponsible), who knows. I do recognize that the wonderful opportunities that I am able to partake in are gifts and I truly appreciate them.
There’s been a lot of discussion at the national level about ‘entitlement’ programs such as Social Security. They actually were started as a gift not an investment as many people believe. It was started so that the poorest of the poor would have a safety net at the end of their life so they wouldn’t be destitute. Money was to be taken from those that work and given to those that made it to old age, which 65 was old age back then and very few people made it to that point. The first year benefits were given out there were about 40 workers per every recipient. With added programs and the fact that 65 is no longer old, there are barely more than 3 workers per recipient. It was meant to help out, to augment your savings, just to get you through. I’m glad it’s there. I appreciate it. It may not be there somewhere down the road. I have to move forward in my life planning for what I know and not necessarily counting on things I don’t know for sure if they will be there.
There are so many things that government provides that make our world so much better and I truly do appreciate the quality of life that I am able to enjoy. I also recognize that much of what it provides many of us could survive without. In times of strife and struggle that has been proven, it’s just that America has not really had to experience that for a long, long time. Just because we get used to something doesn’t mean that we have to have it or we are entitled to it. Recognize the wonderful gifts that we are given and make the most of them.