Service over Self

Tuesday the 19th of February 1945 marks the 75th anniversary of the storming of Iwo Jima by some 80,000 U.S Marines. This small island in the Pacific played a critical role in the pacific theater and waged on for 36 days killing more than 6,000 American Soldiers.

Four days later Joe Rosenthal snapped perhaps the most iconic war picture from the second World War. The image is of six soldiers from the 28th regiment 5th division Marines triumphantly raising the stars and stripes on top of Mt. Suribachi. Of these 6 Marines, 3 of them would answer the ultimate call of service to their country and leave the island draped under an American flag in the name of ensuring democracy for our nation and for others.

Fast forward to 74 years and 364 days and you would find me sitting in the jury waiting room at 8:30 A.M Monday morning. I’m pretty sure that no one gets that letter in the mail and thinks to themselves ” Oh, Sweet. Jury duty I’m pumped about that.” However, the level of disdain and utter lack of respect for a constitutional right was appalling by a few of the people who were sitting in that same room with me. One fellow juror who was picked in the group before me was back down in the waiting room a few minutes later and joyously announced he had been removed from his duties and could leave. I later overheard that when asked to take his hat off when entering the courtroom by a bailiff he told him in several words that were not going to use in this blog how he felt about that. Essentially this gentleman and I use that term loosely was rewarded for actions that should have left him sitting in contempt of court for the rest of day.

12-20-2020

A lot has changed since I started this blog post in mid-February of this year. I’ve got quite a few incomplete thoughts saved in the cloud and every once in a while it’s nice to come back and read them and utilize what I’ve learned since hitting save to finally finish out the puzzle.

I remember being so disappointed in a large portion of that room on that Monday in February. I heard a lot of me, me, me this is so terrible, horrible and a major inconvenience for me! Why did I have to get picked for this, I don’t want to be here, I’m going to tell the judge I hate cops, criminals, or whatever I need to say to get out of this. Did I really want to be there doing my part as a citizen of this country, NO, I did not! But when you are called upon to be a part of something bigger than yourself you make the necessary sacrifices to answer that call. And the call of sitting in an air-conditioned room all day is a very lite load to bear by the way.

The men who served in world war 2 didn’t want to leave their families for years on end, they didn’t want to work under the horrendous conditions they faced and they surely didn’t want to die on some far off island in the pacific. But they answered the call for the greater good of America and the world. They made sacrifices to their freedoms that I will likely never understand and hope never to experience. The next time I think that something in 2020 is a horrible inconvenience for me or is an encroachment on my freedom I’m going to think about the guys who raised that flag for their brothers living and dead and remember that I don’t have a leg to stand on.

Wining streak.

We, you, and I are the summation of all of our life experiences. For better or for worse we are where we are at in our lives based upon the multitude of our life’s choices internal, external, and the things that we have absolutely no control over. I came to that realization after walking on the beach earlier this year when I needed to brush the sand off of my feet. The beach aka our health looks like one big giant homogenous thing from a distance when in reality its made up of millions of tiny grains of sand aka life choices when you look a little closer.

A beach just like our overall health and well being grows/diminishes over time oftentimes so slowly that you don’t notice for months or years that things are looking a little different. And oftentimes when you do finally see a difference the change is so big that doing anything to fix it seems like an insurmountable task. This is where the old adage of how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time comes into play. When you’re faced with a huge task in your life the best thing you can do for yourself is do a quick OODA loop.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop#:~:text=The%20OODA%20loop%20is%20the,operational%20level%20during%20military%20campaigns.

Find something small and readily easy to accomplish and get going. When you start small and get an early win that massive obstacle starts to look a little smaller and easier to overcome. Just like it took thousands of choices to get to the point before we realized there was an issue it’s going to take thousands of choices before we ever see a noticeable difference.

It’s taken me 5 years’ worth of mostly positive choices to get to where I am today after years of poor choices. An almost 40-year-old in above-average physical condition. I can run fast, climb boulders and do a ton of pull-ups, and surf a 5’7 lis fish. I’m not going to win ultra-distance races, climb a v6+ boulder (extremely difficult) or break any pull-up records, or get sponsored. And you know what? I don’t give a damn about any of those things. What I care about is having fun, sharing those passions with my kids, and most importantly stacking up one good decision on top of another so hopefully my health/wellbeing stays clean so I can do all of those things for years to come.

External forces remember those from the opening paragraph? I’m not naive, We can make all the right choices when it comes to diet, exercise, and the thousand other variables in our life and still get side-swiped by disease, or for that matter, an actual car could take us out. Life isn’t fair, we’ve talked about this multiple times over in the blog, and that’s why the occasional slice of pizza or Christmas dessert is fine by me. We aren’t promised tomorrow but like the 96-year-old man that I see walking the neighborhood often likes to say 

” I woke up alive again today, I’m putting together one hell of a streak.”

On surfing…

We’ve been getting a run of swell the last few weeks here in Florida and I busted a leash and needed some wax so when a downtime at work came up I ran down to my local surf shop. 

A surf shop is similar to any other retail business but its also a place to hang out, talk story and brag or lament with your fellow brothers and sisters about that sick wave you got or how you blew it waiting for the tide to drop only to have the wind switch direction and ruin the waves. In all accounts, my trip to the surf shop could/should have been less than 5 minutes to pick up what I needed but when my wife texted 45 minutes later I realized I should probably get back to work.

Besides talking about the previous swell, what we were riding, checking out new boards, and gushing over some sweet vintage boards in the used rack older gentlemen walked into the shop with a hoodie sweatshirt and his wetsuit on underneath, he was stopping in to say hello, get the stoke going and head out across the street for a surf. After a few minutes of random surf talk, he tells me that he’s 67 years old and that he used to surf when he was a kid but life and a job that moved him around a lot had ended his surfing 30+ years ago. He went on to mention that he had some recent health issues and after a few doctor’s visits he needed to make some changes but didn’t know where to start. A chiropractor friend during a visit for an adjustment said to him next Saturday I want you to meet me at the beach instead of an office visit, We’re going surfing. And to make a long story short he’s since lost 40lbs by surfing and a diet change, stopped having to take several prescription medicines, and is feeling better than he has in years and his second love affair with surfing is in full effect.

All I’ve ever wanted to be when I grew up was a surfer, one of the local boys that could walk from his house to the beach instead of drive. The older guy that still surfs shortboards and is in the water for the best swells with the kids half his age. And inevitably the old retired guy whos out there still living the dream and never misses a swell. Those guys are my hero’s and I’m lucky enough to have a few of them as role models and surfing buddies. Those guys are in great shape mentally and physically because their passion for the waves gave them a “why” to stay that way also in their hearts they never really grew up to be adults.

Sometimes we stay the path and live out our passions for our entire life and sometimes life’s plans send us on a 30-year detour before we can get that second go around. It’s not worth getting upset over the lost time and having to start over again or even worse thinking it’s too late in our lives to make a change. Like the guy at the shop in the hoodie told me this journey all started because I agreed to paddle out and give it a shot, all I wanted to do was stand up and now months later I’m here and having the time of my life and feeling great

When I have the time…

“You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.

And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.

No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.“

Pink Floyd – Time

It’s kind of interesting how we can sing a song in the car word for word a couple of hundred times in our life and never really pick up on the meaning of the lyrics. So let’s all do ourselves a favor and read the lyrics to this masterpiece of lyrical prose, Its okay I will just hang out and wait for you to get back. https://genius.com/Pink-floyd-time-lyrics

Mind-Blowing, Right? How did we miss that?

“You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today…” That’s what us millennial’s like to call a #truthbomb. I think everyone would agree that in your twenties and early thirties you are invincible, tomorrow is a guarantee and you can worry about getting exercise and eating healthy when you get old.

There’s a line in a classic Simpson’s episode where Homer says ” That’s a problem for future homer, and boy I don’t envy that guy” as he mixes up some mayonnaise and vodka before hitting the floor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQvvmT3ab80

Hopefully, we haven’t stooped to that level of denial in our lives but I’m here to tell you that our chickens do eventually come home to roost and we will have to answer to our past indiscretions eventually.

This 21st-century life is so incredibly busy that it’s no surprise that we put something like consistent exercise and healthy eating way back down on the list of priorities. One salad and a 5k run won’t give you six pack abs and a clean bill of health on your annual physical just like a burger, fries, and a double IPA won’t make you fat if you eat it once. The choices we make for better or worse when it comes to diet and exercise are cumulative. They happen so slowly that often times we don’t notice that we are making progress or losing ground.

Change is here to stay and if you aren’t looking around and being conscious of the small decisions that you make today, tomorrow, and the next day you’re going to wake up and find ten years have got behind you and you slept right through the starting gun.

My why in video format.

Yesterday I wrote about “concepts” and the two things that are constant in life. The first was, Change is constant and the second is things fall apart. Shortly after I posted that video I was looking at My Facebook page and my mom shared the following video. I know I ask you to do a lot of things but I really think this is the easiest and maybe the most impactful way to show you the message that I’m trying to get across. Watch till the end and grab some tissues.

Epic, right? It made me tear up a little bit as well. I could not have scripted a better advertisement of why I make the decisions that I do every single day and why I’m trying to encourage others to make similar long term life choices as well. Life has very few constants as I mentioned earlier, Things are going to change and eventually all things fall apart and don’t function quite like they used to. We have the power in our daily choices to slow down the progression of the later of the two constants, Were never going to stop the aging process with any amount of superfoods and kettlebell exercises but the choices you make today, tomorrow, and 30 years from now could keep you around and active for your loved ones.

Things fall apart

Last week I was listening to the audiobook, No one wants to read your sh*t by Steven Pressfield and he espoused that in your writing you have to have a concept. Something steadfast and unwavering to tie everything back into. So over the past few days, I’ve been thinking a lot about that and what exactly it is that I’m trying to accomplish and then it hit me. A quote from the stoic philosopher Seneca the younger.

“In the meantime cling tooth and nail to the following rule: Not to give in to adversity, never to trust prosperity, and always take full note of fortune’s habit of behaving just as she pleases, treating her as if she were actually going to do everything it is in her power to do.”

Here are my two takeaways from that centuries-old truth bomb.

  1. Constant change is here to stay. Sometimes it hits you like a mack truck and you know it’s there but other times changes happen so slowly you don’t notice anything until years later.
  2. Things fall apart. What is perfect, beautiful, and healthy today will inevitably crumble and begin to fail. There’s nothing we can do to stop this march but we and our daily decisions can slow down its path with preventative maintenance.

Yes Virginia, There really is enough…

Of all of the ism’s capitalism is the least terrible of the options. No one is altruistic enough to run a socialist nation, communism works but isn’t scalable so that leaves us with the least moldy banged up loaf of bread after the shelves are nearly bare. Capitalism with all its faults it inst really so bad if everyone is trying to play the game in a relatively fair manner. But as all of our mom’s and dad’s told us when we were kids ” Life isn’t fair” In fact there’s a mathematical theory called the Pareto Distribution that goes on to prove that life and capitalism for that manor are in fact unfair, its just a rule of life. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_distribution

I’m not a burn it to the ground and start over kind of guy, I like capitalism. I want you to buy my art so that I’ll have more money in my bank account, I want to spend that money on the things I need and to provide for my family. (Notice I said need and not want.)

I’ve come to the realization that through my almost 4 decades on this planet that the greed and desire to collect more and more stuff is killing our spirit and forcing us into a self-imposed state of anxiety, debt, and depression. Think back to yesterday when we read Steinbeck’s letter on Christmas. To paraphrase he said, If I wanted to tear apart a nation I would give them plenty and watch them tell themselves apart. Fast forward to the late ‘90s and the movie fight club gives us this gem about the American condition.

“We buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like.”

Believe me when I tell you that I’m not going to sell all of my worldly possessions and move my family into a yurt and swear of the western world and capitalism to start a more perfect system of fair trade bartering with other like-minded individuals. What I’m trying to do is purchase less, be more thoughtful in the purchases that I make, spend my money wisely, and more importantly invest with companies who are socially, environmentally, and governmentally aware of the choices they are making and how they run their businesses.

When you go with just a little less stuff, a little less expensive stuff and you figure out how to stretch your dollar a little further you’ll often find there really is enough for you and a little extra to go around for the betterment of your neighbor. The act of giving to others is a selfless and selfish act in the same breath, what you give to others is often paid back to you several times over in self-worth.

I’m not crazy enough to think we can influence fortune 500 CEOs to think this way tomorrow but if you and I start living this mission our children’s kids may just live in a world where that loaf of bread called capitalism isn’t quite as moldy.

America, That second kind of Christmas…

I discovered this passage a few years ago while listening to John Steinbeck’s final book America and Americans. It’s not so much of a book as a collection of short stories, essays, and letters from his life. It’s truly amazing and definetely worth a read.https://www.amazon.com/America-Americans-Selected-Nonfiction-Classics/dp/0142437417

The letter in question is the following masterpiece from Steinbeck.

America is like that second kind of Christmas

New York

1959

Guy Fawkes Day

Dear Adlai,

Back from Camelot, and, reading the papers, not at all sure it was wise. Two first impressions. First, a creeping, all pervading nerve-gas of immorality which starts in the nursery and does not stop before it reaches the highest offices both corporate and governmental. Two, a nervous restlessness, a hunger, a thirst, a yearning for something unknown—perhaps morality. Then there’s the violence, cruelty and hypocrisy symptomatic of a people which has too much, and last, the surly ill-temper which only shows up in human when they are frightened.

Adlai, do you remember two kinds of Christmases? There is one kind in a house where there is little and a present represents not only love but sacrifice. The one single package is opened with a kind of slow wonder, almost reverence. Once I gave my youngest boy, who loves all living things, a dwarf, peach-faced parrot for Christmas. He removed the paper and then retreated a little shyly and looked at the little bird for a long time. And finally he said in a whisper, “Now who would have ever thought that I would have a peach-faced parrot?”

Then there is the other kind of Christmas with present piled high, the gifts of guilty parents as bribes because they have nothing else to give. The wrappings are ripped off and the presents thrown down and at the end the child says—”Is that all?” Well, it seems to me that America now is like that second kind of Christmas. Having too many THINGS they spend their hours and money on the couch searching for a soul. A strange species we are. We can stand anything God and nature can throw at us save only plenty. If I wanted to destroy a nation, I would give it too much and would have it on its knees, miserable, greedy and sick. And then I think of our “Daily” in Somerset, who served your lunch. She made a teddy bear with her own hands for our grandchild. Made it out of an old bath towel dyed brown and it is beautiful. She said, “Sometimes when I have a bit of rabbit fur, they come out lovelier.” Now there is a present. And that obviously male teddy bear is going to be called for all time MIZ Hicks.

When I left Bruton, I checked out with Officer ‘Arris, the lone policeman who kept the peace in five villages, unarmed and on a bicycle. He had been very kind to us and I took him a bottle of Bourbon whiskey. But I felt it necessary to say—”It’s a touch of Christmas cheer, officer, and you can’t consider it a bribe because I don’t want anything and I am going away…” He blushed and said, “Thank you, sir, but there was no need.” To which I replied—”If there had been, I would not have brought it.”

Mainly, Adlai, I am troubled by the cynical immorality of my country. I do not think it can survive on this basis and unless some kind of catastrophe strikes us, we are lost. But by our very attitudes we are drawing catastrophe to ourselves. What we have beaten in nature, we cannot conquer in ourselves.

Someone has to reinspect our system and that soon. We can’t expect to raise our children to be good and honorable men when the city, the state, the government, the corporations all offer higher rewards for chicanery and deceit than probity and truth. On all levels it is rigged, Adlai. Maybe nothing can be done about it, but I am stupid enough and naively hopeful enough to want to try. How about you?

Yours,

John

I read this passage every year around this time and it always amazes me how something written 61 years ago can still feel so massively relevant today. I’m trying to come up with a way to paraphrase this letter that does it justice and doesn’t make it sound like I’m the grinch trying to steal Christmas away from everyone this year. So I’m going to offer you two statements I believe to be of the utmost truth.

Less is More.

Love people and use things not the other way around.

Nothing Changes on New Years day…

If you know me then you know I’m a massive U2 fan and one of my long time favorite songs has always been new years day. It’s an early classic from the band and is highly regarded as one of the top 500 rock songs of all time. Naturally, it’s a great song for the last few weeks of the year and it came across our Alexa last night and it got me to thinking about all of the ” 2020’s almost over, Horray Things are going to be so much better in 2021 posts” that are starting to pop up all over social media.

There’s a particular line in that song that really stuck with me. ” Nothing changes on New Years Day.”

I’m not trying to be a Debbie Downer here but if/when a ball drops in time square this year and we ring in the new year its just another arbitrary finish line we cross multiple times in our life, it’s just another lap around the sun in this race called life.

I’m cautiously optimistic that our trajectory will be on the incline over the next 12 months but change/progress happens slowly and over an extended period of time very few things of significance in life move at the speed of a light switch.

Oftentimes change happens so slow that you don’t realize that you’ve passed that “finish line” you were looking for miles and miles ago. Today’s moral of the story is to put your head down and keep on trucking because finish lines are just a figment of our imaginations.

Happy Vs Content…

I’ve always had an efinity for words and trying to make sure that I use them in their most accurate form. A lot of times thats a huge challenge in the english language where a dozen or so words might be a good fit. Its kind of like horse shoes and handgrenades you just have to be close to get the job done. But what I’m talking about is finding the word that hits the bullseye like an archer drawing their bow and taking dead aim.

Todays words to contemplate in poetic form are Happiness and Contentment.

Happiness

Is like trying to catch a butterfly in a hurricane.

Waiting only for the perfect wave to peak out over the horizion.

A magical sunset. Here for a brief instance then faiding into darkness.

Contentment

Learning to not fight the conditions and role with the breeze.

Seeing beauty in the imperfect conditions of the everyday.

Taking a mental snapshot of the sunset and replaying them on lifes