The day after Christmas 2011, time to start packing up the tree, taking down the lights, and paying off the credit cards after another crazy season. It is also time to look ahead to next year and all it holds. 2012? When the hell did that happen? I was just getting married…wait, it has been ten years. I just graduated high school…Sauteed Shitake Mushrooms, Batman! It has been twenty years! Well, I guess it is time to think about resolutions for 2011…er…2012.
Given the Mayan calendar, this might not be a worthwhile exercise. End of the world and all that. But hey, we may as well finish up strong. Besides, what else are we gonna do until then? This past year, has been a revolution for me. As I have wrote previously, the best laid plans of this mouse have been trodden into the ground. The world might not end this year but it might for me. That seems depressing and very dark, but it isn’t. We all make excuses for pursuing our dreams, going after what we really want, or trying something new because we want to be practical or because we can put it off until tomorrow or because it is just too much trouble right now. That realization has given me the key to those self-imposed handcuffs. I can see something and go for it. I don’t want to miss my chance. This is it.
It is not in big things. I am not going to get my chance to play football again. I am not going to miss my opportunity to compete for a world championships. It is in things like time with family. For years, my wife has wanted to go take the Polar Express train ride with the girls up in Santa Fe. The ride itself is nothing special. Hop on an antique train car and ride out a few miles, read a story, drink some hot cocoa and ride back. Not shocking anyone, this year has not been an easy one financially but we made the trip happen. It hurt our budget for gifts for ourselves but it was the best gift in the world. Every other year, I poo-pooed the idea on the grounds we couldn’t afford it but this year, I was thinking we couldn’t afford not to. Three most amazing things, my youngest daughter riding with me on an open flat car yelling, “Wow!” and pointing at everything we went past, the way my oldest daughter’s eyes became as big as saucers when Santa climbed on the train, and listening to both of them laugh and giggle watching “Elf” in the hotel room afterwards. Definitely, couldn’t afford not to go.
So, given that, What do we do about next year? No specific goals. A goal is a promise you make. I don’t like breaking promises. I have become very judicious about making them. No, no resolutions. That implies that something is wrong with what you have today. When the handcuffs came off, so did my wanting. I now try to appreciate every moment, good or bad. No, I am not fixing myself. I am just being. So, not to speak circuitously, what am I going to accomplish for this year? I am dropping the specifics. No numbers or benchmarks. No rigid plans. I know Napoleon Hill is rolling over in his grave at my advocating such heresy but hear me out.
This year I am outlining guiding virtues to pursue in my daily life. Principles to guide my behavior that will bring me happiness, satisfaction, and put my house in order. I’ll go into detail on these later. Each one warrants a post of its own but I want to put them all here today. Call them themes for the year. Just like when Ralphie’s teacher assigned him the theme. Just the concept and he could fill it out however he wished. To him, it was the greatest piece of literature ever written, full of his dreams and vision. That theme was his way to bring his dreams to reality. Such are these to me. Will I shoot my eye out? Maybe. Will I get a C- from my teacher? Maybe. But I’ll never stop Black Bart if I don’t.
The first theme for 2012 is minimalism. I am about a third of the way into Walden. It brings back thoughts I had when I was that DS teenager graduating high school twenty years ago. Over the next five years, I had some of the greatest adventure of my life. All because I was free from the trappings of modern life. I spent two stretches sleeping in my car and a summer living like a gladiator in a travel trailer. Chased my dreams with abandon all because there was nothing to lose. I had food, a job, and time. That was before I became enamored with the concept of sophistication. The trappings of the world mean things to lose and things that must be done to hold onto them. There is nothing wrong with the sophisticated life but it is not in my nature. I am just as happy on a lawn chair with a can of High Life as I would be in a swank restaurant drinking Moet. No, I’d be happier. As much as I appreciate a luxury automobile, I much prefer my truck. Dents and scratches make me never worry about parking. It doesn’t bother me to drive in mud or muck. On Saturday night, I much prefer to stay at home and do anything than go to some bar, party or get together. Cut away the unnecessary. What remains is what is really important.
So what does that translate to in action? Four steps, each one returning to that simpler life, each one an obviously simple thing to do that I have not done before. Step One, kill the sacred cow. I have notoriously held onto things that only I saw as important. That has been good like my devotion to training. It has also been my undoing when my pride and shortsightedness have lead me astray. Step Two, trim the fat from the steak. I know some fat adds flavor to the steak but you don’t need all of it. Same with life, holding on to a few things that are sentimental or rainy day items makes sense and adds to the quality of life but what happens when keeping these things becomes work in and of itself. Step Three, Sell off the excess before it goes bad. Have you ever left your lunch in the car and forgot about it until one sunny afternoon when you get in your car and swear that death had taken occupancy? Keep what meat you need and can use but no need to hold on to things that will go bad before you can eat them. How many times have you bought too much just because it was a better deal only to throw half of it out once you dug it out of the back of the fridge a year after the expiration date? In all things I want to judge things by the question, “What do I really need?”
Theme two is Discipline. You can’t live minimally without having the discipline to remain true to that creed. It is fine to enjoy things however decadent, as long as you have the discipline to let it go once it is gone. Be disciplined to do what is necessary. Work at the things we want to accomplish. Work hard and be true to yourself. Vince Lombardi became a legend on this theme alone. ”I’ve never known a man worth his salt who, in the long run, deep down in his heart, didn’t appreciate the grind, the discipline.” Bring myself to bear on training, easy. To run the half marathon a few weeks back was easy despite the fact that before March I had not jogged more than a mile since Clinton was president. No trouble, just do it. Bringing myself to bear on an engineering/handyman problem, no big deal. It is almost automatic. But so many times, I know the solution to the problem but fail to engage it because it is easier to just ignore it. Diet, relationship, financial, maintenance, cleaning, I put off until the deadline. I have to be disciplined in doing what I don’t want to do with the same devotion, enthusiasm and integrity I do the things I want to do.
Persistence is that thing that truly brings success. Seeds that are planted need to be tended. Work needs to be done. Everyday. Every week. Consistently. Persistently. It also is what allows us to deal with failure. I am fond of quoting the legend that surrounds the light bulb. Numerous inventors besides Edison were pursuing that technology but none succeeded. It was considered impossible. Edison was even considered a fool for pursuing it. 10,000 failures before succeeding. His attitude was not that he failed, he discovered another way not to make an incandescent light. This is a general theme that I do not need to add but need to make sure I don’t forget. I devoted decades to strength training. I have devoted 15 years to being a personal trainer. I have devoted seven to being a gym owner. Persistence is not an issue but as with discipline, it needs to be broadened to all aspects of my life.
Principled Living is something John Wooden espoused as the key to a successful life. All of us make sacrifices for the sake of expediency, convenience, and to avoid conflict. But are we sacrificing long term happiness for these short term moments. Perhaps. Maybe not once but once here and once there, over time, repeatedly and it becomes a giant snowball rolling down hill. Uncontrolled and unstoppable. As Shakespeare wrote, “To this above all, to thine own self be true.” I need to remember what is right in the face of what is fun, what is easy, and what is self-indulging.
The last theme for the year is Planning. Wait, what is this? Didn’t you just say no plans? Yep, if I contradict myself, very well, I contradict myself. The point is not to put a plan down and rigidly follow it but instead to think long term. Is it worth the cost today as opposed to the reward tomorrow? Or even more importantly, is what I am getting today worth the cost tomorrow? The other thing is that I have a tendancy to just go after something and not plan how I am actually going to get there. This results in me getting too far in to change course but no idea how to get from here to there so I spend three times the effort and twice as long getting out of it as I would have if I would have simply thought about it before hand. I need to make my plan, just as I would training for a meet, and follow it. Who goes into business without a business plan? This guy. Who goes into presentations with no idea what he’s going to say? This guy. Gotta be smarter than that.
That is the thoughts for this coming year and barring the end of the world, we’ll revisit this in a few days or at least it will seem that way December of next year.
If you need me, I’ll be around.
