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“I prefer Kipling. ‘The female of the species is more deadly than the male.’” – Clue

So, yeah, I drove by this one time.  Didn’t stop. 

Ahhhh, Kipling.

Kipling won the Nobel™ Prize© in literature back when it meant something, i.e., before the Nobel® committee discovered the internet, started spending time on Facebook®, stopped reading entirely and, remembering on a Thursday they were still supposed to give some award away related to something called “literature”, awarded one to Bob Dylan thinking he might bring some primo weed to Stockholm if he won.  Instead?  Bobby didn’t show up at all, and sent them a crappy recording describing a book report that a teacher would flunk a freshman for (really) instead of a lecture.

And no weed for the committee.

Can a Nobel® Physics™ Prize© be too far out for the guy who did the special effects for Star Wars™?  At least that guy ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm, no more, either.

Seriously.  Bob Dylan?  For literature?

Anyhow, back to Kipling.  He wrote poems that were amazing in the rhythm, word choice, and thoughts behind the poem.  I’ve previously mentioned “If” – which has for decades been one of my favorites – that post is here (LINK).

Another favorite of mine is the following one, The Gods of The Copybook Headings.  It was written in the aftermath of World War One, which was particularly devastating for both England, generally, and Kipling, personally.  The title refers to books that school children used to practice penmanship by copying the same sentences again.  And again.  And again.  The phrases that they used were typically based on Bible verses or other generally accepted moral aphorisms.

The Gods of The Copybook Headings

AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

Kipling was weary.  He’d seen that when people varied from accepted wisdom and morality, the results were . . . horrifying.  The idea was simple:  the experiences and accumulated wisdom of thousands of years of civilized human experience might (just maybe!) have something to say to us, here, now and today.  Well, his today was 1919, which isn’t really our today.  Everything is different now, right?

Peterson refers to Christian morality (and the Bible in general) as an emergent phenomenon.  It is worth far more than the sum of its parts – it has been distilled and the relatively simple parts produce an amazingly complex outcome – here’s a link to my post that included that (LINK).  With Christianity, it’s a measure of its complexity that it eventually produced the conditions required for the birth of science and the freedoms that eventually sprang from the Reformation.  It’s an irony that Christianity gave birth to the very society that could look at Christianity critically – and it could ask the hard questions about itself – because of itself.

Kipling gives an innate understanding of what Glubb would later begin to quantify (LINK).  Kipling also seems prescient in exactly the places our moral failings would begin to falter – from the general populace disarmament that led to the biggest slaughters in all of history to our greed that led to multiple stock market bubbles . . . and the associated collapses.

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

Rudyard spoke of the dangers of collectivism, even before the full horrors of the Soviet Union and communism appeared, costing at least seventy million lives.  Yet even now, after the complete and demonstrated failure of collectivism, we’re pretty sure Venezuela will be paradise.  Did I say Venezuela?  I meant California.  What, California now leads the United States in poverty?  Hmmm.  Hang on, I’ll get back to you.  Just must be the wrong people putting it in practice.  It certainly can’t be that greed for the wealth of others produces nothing but pain and sorrow.  Covet not . . . hmmm.

Kipling even nailed that in failed collectivist states that beyond the moral and economic destruction of the country, even money itself would be degraded to the point of uselessness.  To double it up?  Kipling knew that we would delude ourselves to believe that collectivism was worth trying again.  And again.

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”

I think that Sin must test pretty poorly in market research – “Seems like it’s pretty judgmental, Alex?”  But I think Sin is there for a reason.  Sinning is bad.  It can be seen that the morality of a dual parent household is unmistakable in its superiority statistically.  It’s really not even close when it comes to outcomes for children.

And marriage is hard.  Very hard.  It’s much easier just . . . having random sex.  And not having marriage.  And not having kids.  And the very end of a civilization, since without the morality that gave birth to it, it can no longer produce the intellectual capital, the wealth, and the free society that allows people to make moral choices.

It doesn’t produce enough strong men.

Thankfully, the chaos that emerges produces strong men that make hard choices.  But it’s a pretty rough ride.  Well it has been.

I’m reliably informed by the Gods of The Market . . . that it’s different this time.

“The Fester Addams Offshore Retirement Fund?” – The Addams Family (1991)

When I retire, I just want to travel by plane when I want to.  A plane like this one.  That I own a fleet of.

I was at work the other day and a friend sent an Instant Message to me over the company system.  The message was as curious and enigmatic as an Easter Island statue:

“How much is enough?”

I responded.

“78 years.”

That’s what I thought the average life expectancy was.  I’d been intending to wear out all of the parts before the warranty expired, but in doing a bit of research, if you’ve lived as long as I have, the average life expectancy goes up to 81.  Meh.

78 is probably enough.  If I can’t finish binge-watching Breaking Bad on Netflix® by then, well, it’s on me.

A bit later we talked on the phone, and I got clarification – it turns out the question was really:

“How much money does a couple need each month to retire on?”

My friend’s working answer was $10,000 a month for the bare necessities.  $120,000 a year – cash, which would be equivalent to a job paying $180,000 before taxes.  A year.

I laughed.  “That’s insane!”

Is it?

I checked my own retirement spreadsheet – my model assumes that I’d spend ~$7,000 a month if I retired now (and I don’t have the money to do that, yet) rising to $8,500 a month by the time I’m sixty five.

All of a sudden, my friend’s ballpark number didn’t seem so large, after all.

Then my friend shared the family budget:

Property taxes:  $2,500/month.  Yeah.  They live in a pretty cool house, in a pretty high tax state.

Electricity:  $600/month.  Yup.  It’s hot there.

Natural Gas:  $50/month.  Seems legit.

Cable/Internet/Phone:  $350/month.  A big bundle, but you’ve got to get the Food Network® after you retire.

Car Insurance:  $250.  This seems low – they have kids and live in a major metropolitan area that looks like the Indy 500 most days.

Monthly Expenses:  $3,000 each for the Husband and Wife.

Add it up?  Pretty close to $10,000.

What do they have?  Heck, I have NO idea.  Again, they’re doing great, and in no hurry to retire.

It used to be that a financial planner would have said that you could pull out 6% of your stash of cash each year.  If you were 65.  I’m not sure, but I’m betting that none of them are saying that now.  Especially in your fifties.  Perhaps 3% or 4%?

Starting Amount	%  Drawn
$           4,000,000	3%
$           3,000,000	4%
$           2,400,000	5%
$           2,000,000	6%

The lower the amount that you draw down, the less risk you are taking.  Me?  If I was in my fifties and wanted to be sure that I was going to have $10,000 a year until I died?  I’d want at least $3,000,000, and $4,000,000 would be nicer – remember, this has to last you for at least thirty years, and the longer you live, the greater the chance of significant risks, like those that hit Rome (LINK) or stupidity like the Dutch over flowers (LINK).

What has inflation done in 30 years?  $10,000 today would be worth roughly $5,000 in 1988 dollars.  And medicine, something you’ll be needing more of as you grow older has been especially prone to inflation.  Especially medicine that keeps older folks alive.  And as I’ve said before (LINK), we are soon due for a reckoning in medical costs.  My plan is to force my cells to evolve through sheer willpower to create all the drugs a doctor would have given me.

My budget varies, and is a lot more detailed.  That $3,000 has to pay for maintenance, painting, new cars, homeowner’s insurance, clothing, cell phones, food, mowers, PEZ®, vacations, eyebrow rings, good wine, everything.  Oh, and health insurance.  And medicine.  And Christmas gifts.  And ammunition.

After reviewing their number and their proposed lifestyle, I guess I have to unlaugh.  It seems legit.

It seems . . . prudent.

And it also seems very much in their power to get there (easily).

Sure, they could move away from their great neighborhood in the big city they live in, but why?

Now, I’ll note that this is more than three times the average household income of $59,000 a year.  But my friends are very much above average in every way – they’re smart, they have great jobs that they love, they’re raising kids you’d be proud to call your own, and they’re nice.  You would like them.  I mean, you might not like them as much as you like me, but there really only can be on John Wilder.  Okay, there are at least a dozen others.  But we all know I’m the only one for you.

Anyhow, these are great people.  But, they’re also frugal – they do buy nice stuff (they have better taste than I do) – but they don’t waste anything.  They’re responsible with their income and resources.  But they don’t want to be a burden on society or their children as they age.  They’re prepping against the Iron Triangle (LINK) of retirement – Time, Money and Lifestyle.

Time:  They’re young, and healthy.  They’ll probably retire whenever they want in their fifties.  They’ll have a longer retirement than most, but as you have seen, they’ll be ready for it.

Money:  They’re in great jobs that require smart, trained people with advanced degrees.  People like them are in demand, and they work in strong sectors (LINK) of the economy.  Low probability they’re be replaced by A.I. (LINK).  They’re doing well.  (Yay, them!)

 

Lifestyle:  They could probably retire right now if they were willing to retire to Sedan, Kansas (LINK).  They could still eat steak whenever they wanted and they and their kids would never have any real need that couldn’t be met.  They’re not choosing the Mr. Money Mustache or Early Retirement Extreme path (LINK).

 

But why should they?  Again, they’re working jobs they love.  And if they retired, they’d probably start a side business that would garner more money than IBM® in a year or two.  If they keep working at their current jobs into their fifties?  Yup, no worries.  Ever.

The above describes about seven or eight married couples that I’m friends with.  They’ve got great talent.  They’re smart.  They studied hard for an undergrad degree in an elite field at a tough school, then got grad credentials (most of them, but not all) and then burned decades of 60+ hour stressful weeks and have succeeded.  They married a single spouse and then stayed married.

Is that what they call lucky in 2018?  Hmmmm.

How come everybody I know who did all those things . . . is doing great?

Also, I’ll leave retirement alone for a while.  Probably.

This is not financial advice.  Really.  I’m a blogger.  I’m not a licensed therapist, doctor, lawyer, oregano peeler, shrimp boat owner, or financial adviser.  Talk to a pro.  Or a psychic.  Or your TV.  Or Miss Cleo.  I really don’t care.  It’s your money.

“Who are you, who are so wise in the ways of science?” – Monty Python and the Holy Grail

 

Pictured:  Science.  Not pictured:  Stubborn Old Italians.

In December I put together notes about a story that I’d read online that rubbed me the wrong way.  It was about stubborn people.  Specifically, the headline said, “Stubborn People Live Longer:  Here’s Why.”  I read the story.  Some science-y folks studied a small (relatively) remote village in Italy.  They picked 29 participants between the ages of 90-101.  Then they picked family members that were between the ages of 51-75.

They picked people that lived through the Great Depression, World War II, and the ravaged Italy after World War II and found out . . . shockingly, that they were stubborn?

They then picked people who grew up in a post-war renaissance, rebuilding, and rebirth and found out they were not as mentally healthy as people who had been toughened in some of the most horrific conditions of the 20^th century?  Where literally every day of their lives was better than any day of 1944?

I’m shocked.  (okay, I’m not)

And to further confound this “study” when you pick a small town in Italy, you simply have to deal with the fact that . . . these people are more closely related than you’d see in New York City.  When I drive around Smalltown, in northeast Midwesteria, I see can see family resemblances everywhere.  When you see the names on the plaques in the high school lobby for the team that won it all in 1954, you see . . . the grandparents of kids The Boy and Pugsley go to school with today.

The Italians may all share characteristics and genetics of some stubborn old dude who kept making Italian women pregnant up until he was 99 while Leonardo DaVinci was still fingerpainting.

And any statistician will tell you that 29 participants isn’t enough to tell you . . . anything.

So, we have a questionable study that gets rolled out by a “journalist” who needs to pop something into the paper so they can feed their kids.  They and 20 other 24 year old kids get assigned the “write a science filler piece about old Italians.”  Since the only science they know was taught to them on the Disney® Channel (there is no science requirement to be a journalist, folks) they poke at the scientific study like Ukrainian Mall Lawyers attempting to fix a broken printer, hoping their clumsy fumbling fingers mash into something so the pretty words come out again so they can go back home to Nadia, who is boiling potatoes and smells faintly of vodka and used to repair tanks at Ukraine Tank Manufacturing Plant Number 342.

So, they pick what words they understand, and attempt to educate us all . . .

Don’t get me wrong – there are some really, really smart journalists.  And some have dedicated themselves to covering science and do a great job.

But not many, because science is really hard.

How hard is it?  To plumb the depths of the structure of the sub-atomic world we build machines miles long, some stretching the diameter of the Earth.

And biology and behavioral science is also hard.  I read once (way back a long time ago, in a book, on paper) about a scientist who was studying mice in mazes.  Mizes?  Anyway, this scientist looked not at the mice, but at the experiment itself.  How could the mice cheat?  Well, they could look up and see the light position for guidance, so he made the light diffuse and uniform over the maze.  They could sense the table wasn’t level, so he leveled the table.  They could hear noise from nearby offices and laboratories, so he soundproofed the room.  They could even feel vibration from the building’s heating system, so he had to dampen the table.  All to get one maze to be “fair” so the mice couldn’t cheat.  As I recall, he did this in the 1920’s or 1930’s.  After he published?  People promptly ignored him and this wonderful research.

Bad science has shown up in lots of places, and journalists with bad stories have helped it along:

• Then: Eggs will kill you!  Now:  Eggs are the perfect food.
• Then: Fat will kill you!  Now:  Plenty of place in a healthy diet for fat.
• Then: Eat high carbs!  Like PopTarts®!  Now:  Carbs are death.
• Then: High fructose corn syrup is the same as sugar!  Now:  No, it’s not even close.

I heard about this company in Great Britain that was going to, wait for it, transplant poop from one person to another for a fee.  Because it happened to this one lady and she lost a lot of weight.  Hey, a journalist wrote about it – it must be awesome!

Yeah.  Great science.  It may turn out to be founded in reality, but I’m expecting more Ukrainian Mall Lawyers . . . poking at the copier this time.

But I’m skeptical.  Which is . . . another word for stubborn?

“When some wild-eyed, eight-foot-tall maniac grabs your neck, taps the back of your favorite head up against the barroom wall, and he looks you in the eye and he asks you if you’ve paid your dues, you just stare that big sucker right back in the eye, and you remember what ol’ Jack Burton always says at a time like that:

‘Have you paid your dues, Jack?’

‘Yes sir, the check is in the mail.’” – Big Trouble in Little China

The Boy, testing the Manned Maneuvering Unit simulator at NASA. He did not get hired, but that’s okay, NASA doesn’t have rockets anymore. 

It’s the end of 2017, so here are some ideas to get you out of a rut in the health and well-being portion of the open-book test we call life.  Remember, it’s okay to cheat off of your neighbor to get the right answer but you don’t want to hurry . . . the test is life . . . so, calculators and pencils ready!

1. Play Your Game

One thing that we often forget is . . . it’s your game.  Your rules.

What do I mean by that?

Define it your game by having cooler stuff than your friends?  Sure.  And take the consequences – consequences that can include lots of debt, long hours, a spouse that has to work so you can have an awesome pickup and boat rather than be home when the kids come home from work.  And, if you’re unlucky, all that work to pay all that debt will allow you to see your kids every other weekend while a new guy lives in your old house.

Or live in New York.  That’s a cool place, right?  I see this in stories all the time – how it’s too expensive to live in New York, or San Francisco . . . but . . . why do you have to live there?  There are dozens of places across the world where you can live like a king (or queen!) for the rent on a one bedroom apartment in San Francisco.

So, having stuff cooler than the stuff your friends have might not be the best solution.

What are the alternatives?  Well, you could live to have money (which is not at all the same as having stuff) but it can have the same sort of consequences.

My choice?  A balance:  meaningful work, finding ways to help other people grow, and having sufficient financial reserves that I’m not at risk for most life events.

Choosing your own balance is key to removing stress.

2. Remember, Life Isn’t A Race To Get To The End First

I had a great boss one time who, facing a 45 day period of intense work said, “I hate to wish my life away, but I’m looking forward to finishing this.”

Wow.  Such wise words.  Even a bad day is one that is your day.  And, most times (not always) I’ve found that there are good parts of even the worst day.  Don’t wish your life away, no matter how easy that might seem.  Savor the bad days for the good things that happened during them, and for the good things that will eventually come from those bad days (LINK).

3. Get Some Sleep

I made a pretty intense effort to increase the amount of sleep I was getting this summer (LINK).  And the effort paid off – I ended up increasing my sleep by over an hour a day, which was very significant.  My mood improved, my energy improved, and life was better.  It seems that sufficient sleep plays a huge part in my overall health.

If you’re not getting six or seven hours of sleep a night AND you’re tired and feeling low on energy, I’d suggest tracking your sleep at night.  Most people can go one night with lesser amounts of sleep, but by the third day where you only get four hours of sleep a night?  I start to drag.  After a week?  It starts to impact even more – mood, outlook, everything.  Crazy thing?  I can cure it all by going to sleep.

4. Make Something/Fix Something Frequently

This is a health post, not a home improvement show!  What gives?

There is a feeling of competence, of satisfaction that comes from making something with your hands, of extending the life of an object through working it. The sheer time and thought processes involved pull you away from your day to day concerns, and give you multiple opportunities to solve problem after problem.

The problems are important in that you solve them.  The completed object is less important than the process of completing it.  When I was a kid I used to make models – and there was no feeling better than having built a model that looked great.

Oddly, some people get scared even to try to fix something that’s broken – what’s the worst that can happen?  It’s broken.  One time I tried to fix a car stereo.  It started received television audio from the local television.  I was listening to Gilligan’s Island® on my stereo.

Until it broke the next day.  But it was cool for the day it worked like that . . . .

5. Write Something

This blog serves several purposes.  One is for you.  One is for my kids.  The biggest beneficiary of the blog?  Me.

When I work to write and construct something that I like, well, I get a similar (but different) satisfaction to fixing the light in the hall, or building an elevated bed for Pugsley (his desk fits underneath).  It’s mental.  So do I blog for you?  Sure.  But mainly for me.

6. Understand What You’re Playing For

To play the game, there has to be a reason.  Why do you keep getting up in the morning?  Would you do your job if you weren’t paid to do it?  My post on this is here (LINK), and remains one of my most popular.

7. Keep Moving

I’ve watched folks as they get older.  I once saw a 90 year old man run (and skip as he ran) to his garden.  He lived another five years.  His life was full as long as he kept moving.  Other observations were that once older folks became bedridden, it generally wasn’t long.  I’m not sure if it’s motivation or if it’s cardiovascular.  Keep moving if you want to live.  Say that in a Schwarzenegger voice for extra motivation . . . “Keep moving if you want to live!  We’ve got to get to the choppa!”

8. Prayer/Gratitude/Meditation

Studies show that people are happier (and healthier) if they engage in prayer each day.  Similar effects are shown with those expressing gratitude and those meditating.  Keep in mind meditation may have side effects . . . (LINK)

I think these might work through different methods, with gratitude especially focusing thoughts on how fortunate a person is, rather than on how rough life is.

Something tells me prayer works on an entirely different basis . . .

9. Have a Routine, Not A Rut

This ties back to wishing your life away.  How often do we see that a week has turned into a month or longer without any change to our lives, to ourselves?

This is a routine taking charge of our lives.  Up at 6am.  Off to work.  Work until 5.  Home at 6pm.  Bed by 11pm.  Up at 6am.  Repeat.  Recharge on Saturday and Sunday.  When you’re feeling better on Sunday night?  Prepare to start again.

Without a routine, I don’t exercise.  I don’t go to bed before 3am.  I end up pushing back writing this blog until it’s way late while watching Russian documentaries dubbed by the British about the Soviets fighting the Germans during WWII.  (Spoiler:  The Soviets win.)

So I need a routine.  But I also have to keep that routine from turning into an excuse to have lived twenty meaningless weeks of life.  I don’t have enough weeks of life to live twenty of them without meaning, without positive change (LINK).

And neither do you.

10. Experiment To Find Out What Works

Find Things That Make You Excited . . . Do Them

A life without excitement sucks.  A life without fun sucks.  Find the things that give you energy, and do them – just enough to keep you energized.  A pleasure repeated too often becomes a punishment . . . .

 

We will all eventually finish the test, but the good news is you get to grade your own performance.  How did you do?  Did you help other people on the way?  Did you make a difference?  Have you paid your dues?

Yes sir, the check is in the mail . . .

From August 30, 2006:

I was two sentences into Sunday’s edition of Life in Alaska. The Mrs., ever attentive, asked what I was going to write about.

“Well,” I said, “This is a pivotal weekend. We now have enough wood that I’m pretty sure that we can get through the winter on our supply.”

The Mrs.: “You’re going to write about wood, again? John, that’s a bit nuts. I know you’re obsessed, but perhaps that’s the reason that your website dropped 0.02% behind google.com last week as the most popular website ever. Perhaps people are just sick and tired of reading about wood.”

I pondered this. I thought, perhaps, just perhaps, that The Mrs. was right, and I was turning into Bubba from Forrest Gump. She generally is. You remember Bubba, right? Here’s my version:

“You’ve got birch saplings, fresh cut birch, cured birch, split birch…“

Instead of writing about wood again, perhaps I could give a bit of insight into the psyche of the average Alaskan, edify and delineate the juxtaposing paradoxes that are Alaska.

“You’ve got birch stump, birch branches, aspen wood, blocked aspen, green aspen…”

It almost spawned a fistfight, and now my neighbors have taken up positions around the cabin making sure that I never leave again, at least until the riots in downtown Fairbanks finish up. They think that they’ve got me surrounded and cut off from outside contact. I fooled them. I’ve got wireless Internet.

“You’ve got spruce boughs, knotty spruce, dry spruce, black spruce…”

So, I sit here, and realize that yes, as usual The Mrs. is right. Perhaps I should write about something other than wood. It does make me a bit one-dimensional.

“You’ve got spruce branches, spruce needles, pine cones…”

Yes, letting the Fairbanks riots of ’06 calm down is probably the best course. Perhaps I could write next week about wood something else. Maybe I’ll even have a fun adventure to write up. That would (wood?) be nice.

“You’ve got gas chainsaws, electric chainsaws, log milling machines…”

As The Mrs. says, “Quit being so darn obsessed with the wood.”

“And that’s… that’s all I know about wood.”

“We paid him in gratitude and life lessons.” – Psych

There are a few Christmas mornings where you will exceed anything your children could have expected.  Sadly, Pugsley wanted an orbital space laser platform to terrorize continents and set him up as God Emperor, but only got Mario Kart®.

“All you need are these: certainty of judgment in the present moment; action for the common good in the present moment; and an attitude of gratitude in the present moment for anything that comes your way.” — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9.6, via the Daily Stoic (LINK)

Where is our attitude as we walk through a day?

While I was living in Alaska, I was stopped at the local Safeway®.  The Mrs. had asked me to pick up some child wax and I had to make a left turn in order to go back home.

I was behind a minivan.  The mother turned back several times, yelling at the children.  It took her (I checked my watch) 35 seconds to finally pay attention to the road and make the left turn.  I know, because I timed her.  I was getting ready to honk my horn when I realized – why be upset?  Why honk your horn over something so small?

Imagine how grateful I was when, after following this woman for 8 miles, like a stalker on parole, that I found out she was my next-door neighbor.  Yikes!

I’m adopted.  I’m grateful that I ended up with a family that didn’t want to strangle me.  At least didn’t want to strangle me too often.  I remember learning at the wise age of five that oil was valuable.  So I took all the motor oil in the garage and put it in jars.  Perhaps to sell it.

Or when I was in fourth grade, that I drew a picture of a spaceship so well that my classmate John accused me of tracing it.  I was grateful for that final bit of artistic excellence, since it went downhill from there.

I was grateful that my 7^th grade English teacher hadn’t read “The Forever War” by Joe Haldeman, since that was where that story I wrote (re-imagined, in current Hollywood terms, or plagiarized in normal speak) came from.

I’m grateful for finding The Mrs., since otherwise she would have broken some poor stick-boy.

Of course, I’m grateful for all of the kids, each in their own way.

I’m grateful for little scissors that I can use to trim my nose hair and ear hair.  I’m not especially grateful for the nose or ear hair.

I’m grateful for Maria Conchito Alonso’s role in The Running Man.  And I’m grateful she isn’t in anything else.

I’m grateful for the antibiotics that ended the pneumonia that otherwise would have ended me.

I’m grateful for my friends, who I call and burden with my lame, first world complaints.

Oh, and I’m grateful for Predator 2, even though Danny Glover is a nutcase in real life.  Oh, wait, that had Maria Conchito Alonso in it, too?  Okay, she can be in two movies.  But only two.

I’ve done an assessment of my life from time to time, and found that, of all the billions of people on the planet, I’m among the most fortunate.  And I’m grateful.

But sometimes I forget to be grateful.  And every time I do, what fills me instead?  Anger.  Envy.  Pride.  Despair.

And, let’s be real since it’s just you and me.  Sometimes you want to be good and angry at the idiot clerk at McDonalds that has none of the advantages you have.  Sometimes you want to be filled with pride because you won an internet slap-fight with an unarmed man.  And . . . sometimes you want to just give up.

The solution has been gratitude for me.  Go outside on a December night.  Take and hold a deep breath.  Enjoy the feeling of cold as it gives you goosebumps as you look up at the stars on a December morning, and realize you’re the only one seeing what you’re seeing in the frozen air.  Let your eyes adjust, and stare deeply into the stars, and understand:

You can be grateful because it’s good for you, because it makes you feel better.  Or you can be grateful because you should be.  Each of us is improbable – each moment we live on this planet a gift.  So, act like it.

And don’t forget to wax and polish your children daily!!

“I’ll only work with the barely competent.  Takes the stress out of slacking off.” – That’ 70’s Show

Sure, it looks placid – but two minutes after I took this picture the building inspector and OSHA showed up and shut the job down.  No hard hats, no safety glasses, and the building wasn’t even to code.  The foundation didn’t have properly spaced rebar – heck, the foundation was just FROSTING!  The Boy and Pugsley will be out on bail soon.

I can recall only a few holiday (Thanksgiving and Christmas) seasons where I felt a lot of stress.  Anticipation?  Sure.  I wanted the G.I. Joe® Mobile-Adventure® Action© Playset™, but I also sensed that the holidays, especially Christmas, was really about more than just toys and presents.  It was also about food.  And time off from school.  And . . .   Okay, okay, and it was also about family.

With one or two exceptions during my life, I have been pretty stress-free at the holidays.  Now even most of that anticipation is gone:  if I get to see everyone, great!  If not?  No problem.  If I get a great present?  Great!  If I don’t get a single present?  No problem.  If they really like the present I got them?  Awesome.  If not?  Meh.  I’m not going to lose a bit of sleep over it.

But a lot of people aren’t like me:  Thanksgiving and Christmas cause them immense, negative stress.  Stress is horrible, and it is (unfortunately) a gift we often give ourselves.  Don’t get me wrong – there are good stresses:  anticipation, competition, challenges.  These, overall make us healthier, so we’re talking about bad stress.

Certainly there are aspects of life (and stress) that we cannot control ourselves.  I agree – there are things that are visited upon us through life events that are pretty difficult.  Family death?  Job loss? Family (or personal) chronic illness or chronic pain?  Yeah, it’s hard for me to jump out and say, suck it up, buttercup – all is well, because sometimes that stressor is deep and may profoundly impact you – forever.

And stress can kill you – literally.  Bad stress leads to (and this is a short list, there are many more items that could fit):

• Depression – not the economic one, the personal one. This can be devastating.
• Heart Disease – which is the number one cause of life insurance payouts.
• Weight Gain – which everyone wants, right?
• Chronic Inflammation – which goes through and impacts multiple body systems, including your immune system.
• Subscribing to Magazines About Knitting – Don’t ask me why.

But stress can be controlled.  When?

When you don’t care.

Or, rather, don’t have a set of expectations of the way that you think the world should be.  For a large number of situations, our stress is self-imposed.  Your football team isn’t winning?  The waitress messed up your order?  The person in line at the store was rude?  These are really small matters, and why would you be upset about them?  Chances are slim you’ll even remember them tomorrow, never mind next month or next year.  If it isn’t a big deal, I give you the permission to just not care.

But . . . what if work not going well because the boss hates you – and hates you for no good reason?  You’ll remember that.

This really happened to The Mrs.:  She was hired for a job while her manager was on maternity leave.  The first time she met her manager was three months after The Mrs. started.  Her manager immediately hated her.  Why?  Her manager didn’t like the person that hired The Mrs.  The Mrs. lasted only about three more months at that job – she quit – and had stress every day.  Another stressor for The Mrs. was that there just wasn’t much to do at the job – it’s one thing to be busy and have to deal with office politics – it’s quite another when most of the day is filled with . . . nothing.  Her job, for her, had no meaning.

Yes, it’s hard not to care (or have low expectations) if your boss hates you and your job has no meaning.  It’s even harder to deal with this if you’re not fortunate, like The Mrs., and have the ability to quit your job.  But you can decide not to care if you must have the job, because you choose to find your meaning elsewhere, though given the circumstances above, you should probably be floating your résumé.

Let me give an example:  Victor Frankl was an inmate in a WWII German concentration camp.  Pretty awful place.  And he saw that everything, absolutely everything could be taken from him.  Even his life.  Except . . . Frankl saw that the one thing that couldn’t be taken from him was the way that he felt.  His attitude belonged only to him.

From his book, Man’s Search for Meaning:

“The pessimist resembles a man who observes with fear and sadness that his wall calendar, from which he daily tears a sheet, grows thinner with each passing day.  On the other hand, the person who attacks the problems of life actively is like a man who removes each successive leaf from his calendar and files it neatly and carefully away with its predecessors, after first having jotted down a few diary notes on the back.  He can reflect with pride and joy on all the richness set down in these notes, on all the life he has already lived to the fullest.  What will it matter to him if he notices that he is growing old?  Has he any reason to envy the young people whom he sees, or wax nostalgic over his own lost youth?  What reasons has he to envy a young person?  For the possibilities that a young person has, the future which is in store for him?

“No, thank you,’ he will think.  ‘Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and of love loved, but of sufferings bravely suffered.  These sufferings are even the things of which I am most proud, although these are things which cannot inspire envy.”

If you ever want to feel small, just remember those are the words of a man who lived for years in one of the most difficult environments we know of, and came out filled with hope.

So, from Frankl, meaning is key.  You have to have your own reason for doing what you’re doing.  If you have a reason, you can endure anything.  Amateurs try to treat the wrong thing when they try to give you advice on how to beat stress.  Here are examples of really bad advice:

• Too Much Caffeine – Caffeine doesn’t cause stress. And coffee is awesome.
• Not Enough Exercise – I like to exercise, but lack of exercise doesn’t cause stress.
• Not Enough Sleep – I like to sleep, but lack of sleep doesn’t cause stress.
• Not Keeping a Stress Diary – Now they’re not even trying.

As you can see, these are bad ideas – they look only at attacking symptoms, and not the underlying problem.  Rule 1:  Ignore stuff that’s not important.  Rule 2:  Have meaning and or a purpose.

Everything else is details.

“Look, you two guys are just guys, okay? Mr. White, he’s the devil. You know, he is smarter than you, he is luckier than you. Whatever you think is supposed to happen, I’m telling you, the exact reverse opposite of that is gonna happen, okay?” – Breaking Bad

Yup, that’s a real, live open Blockbuster©.  You thought that all the Blockbusters® moved to Paris to live with a Frenchman named “Louis” in a dingy apartment above a bread shop in a sort of shabby, Bohemian artsy life that involved a lot of angst and cigarettes, but here is one that’s still open.

Pop Wilder was at the peak age of life, 45 or 46, when the big bank in the Midwest called.  They’d met him at a conference, and they liked him.  A lot.  They’d like him to move from being President of his small farm bank into the big leagues.

Taking the job would mean moving away from the small (population at when he got the job offer was about 750 people) mountain farming town where he lived since his birth to a larger Midwestern town (population zillions).  He and Mom discussed it, and he decided he would take the job.  After all, they were shoving his face full of more money (salary comparison in 2017 dollars:  $310,000, and those are American dollars, not those cheap Canadian dollars) than he had ever expected.  And the future was wide open – this was a BIG bank.  He might even be called up to New York if he did well with the Midwest bank, where the money could be even more.

He went in to quit, and called the majority shareholder, Mr. Potter (we talked about him earlier, here (LINK)).  Potter told him to stop and think about this – he’d be leaving the town he was born in, the town where he’d grown up.  “Why, Pop Wilder, you know everyone.  In a big city, you wouldn’t know anyone!  And the risk, what if you didn’t do well?  Then you’d be fired in a big city!  To make it easier, why, I’ll match their offer.”

Pop Wilder stayed.  One night, 17 years later, he would bitterly remark that he’d had the last raise of his life 17 years earlier.  Mr. Potter had no viable replacement for Pop, and had been a shrewd and manipulative businessman – playing off of Pop’s fears.  But Pop (and Pop’s name) was what he wanted, but he wanted it only at the lowest possible price.

To give you an example of what kind of a gem Mr. Potter was:  Mr. Potter owned a gold mine, and fired his mining engineer every two years.  He didn’t want the mining engineer to know more than he did about the mine.

Great guy, huh?  I met him once.  I felt like I was in the presence of something H. P. Lovecraft wrote about – some evil eldritch abomination from beyond time.  Or just an evil old dude.

Fast forward a very long time . . .

I was living in Alaska with The Mrs.  We loved it.  We had given birth to Pugsley up there (well, to be honest, I was present, and wrote the checks, so I gave birth, too, right?).  Our house was the right size.  The lifestyle was amazing – guns, gasoline, and woodburning fireplaces.  Plus they even had Internet.

Then an old boss called.

He was looking for me to move down to the lower 48, specifically, Texas.  Honestly, we weren’t interested.  Fairbanks was wonderful.  And I had even said (once upon a time) that I’d never move to Houston.

I told him, “No.  Thanks for asking.  We like it here.”

His response:  “What would it take for you to move this way?”

Me:  “Okay, (NUMBER).”  I arrived at number by adding my salary, my wife’s salary, her bonus, my bonus, and then threw 20% on top.  I thought that my unreasonable request would at least gently shut him down so I could move on and ignore him.

Him:  “Okay, we could do that number, plus a guaranteed 20% bonus, minimum.  And a signing bonus.  And we can move all of your stuff.  But the boss says we can’t buy your house with the relocation package.”

I was stunned.  He called my bluff.  The Mrs. and I spent agonizing hours on this, but finally gave in and listened.  He flew the whole family down to Houston and we looked the place over.  Not to our liking, but the opportunity was so large . . . .

We got back to Fairbanks, and found a job offer on my email.

Me:  “I can do it, but only if you buy my House.”  I secretly hoped they’d stick to their guns and say no.

Him:  “Okay, we’ll buy your house.”

I told my Alaska boss, who was not at all Mr. Potter, that I was quitting.  The company I’d worked for in Alaska immediately raised my salary by 20%, and promised that there would be more to come.  But the opportunity there was working on something much smaller than the new job.

Part of the calculations involved in coming to our decision was Pop Wilder’s life:  he had become stuck in a situation when he didn’t take the chance for significant success, and always regretted it.  In my case, I was going to take the opportunity – it was 100 times bigger than anything I’d ever done.

So, we moved to Houston.  And it worked out okay, even though we still miss Fairbanks.

But it did start me thinking, about opposites.  Staying in Fairbanks would have been easier.  How often is doing the opposite thing from what’s easy the right thing?

I think the answer is:  most of the time.

• Exercise vs. Couch – it’s obvious that sitting on the couch and eating Twinkies® is generally more pleasurable than exercising until your thighs are on fire and sweating buckets, but study after study (dating back 4,000 years to Egypt, where the first article appeared in Healthy Pharaoh Today) shows that, while more fun, couches kill.
• Full vs. Hungry – Imagine the feeling after a Thanksgiving feast . . . and now imagine it killing you. Yes, nobody likes feeling like they’re really hungry, but recent studies have shown that food deprivation is awesome for you, both short term and long term.  I’m mean, not starving to death long term, but rather periodic fasting.
• Party vs. Work – Hard work may pay off in the future, but partying always pays off now. That’s exactly the right answer if you’re running for congress.  Everyone else wants to see the work first.
• Discipline vs. Freedom – It’s hard to make a plan and stick to it, day after day, for months, especially when it looks like it’s not succeeding. But how many times did that one extra attempt push a person from failure to success?  Stephen King would be a dead drycleaner except for trying one more time (LINK).
• Thrift vs. Spend – Saving money is hard, when there are so many shiny things to buy, and so very much PEZ® to eat. So very hard.  But it will allow you to buy even more PEZ© when you are old, like me and your Doctor says you shouldn’t have it.
• Kindness vs. Selfishness – Okay, there have been a few moments in my life when I’ve cut loose and allowed myself to be horribly selfish. Those days are generally weekdays.  Or weekends.  And often occur during the Summer, but also Winter.  And Fall.  And Spring.  At least I try.  On alternate leap years I really try. See also:  Courteous vs. Rude.
• Honor and Loyalty vs. Cowardice – A coward dies a thousand deaths, a brave man but one. But I also bet a live guy wrote that?  Anyway, it’s tough to show honor and loyalty in a world that values neither.  So much easier to give in.  My problem is I have to look myself in a mirror and see the guy on the other side.  So is it my cowardice of not being loyal and honorable that keeps me loyal and honorable?
• Morality vs. Licentiousness – Apparently Hollywood hasn’t heard of “morality,” at least based on the most recent headlines. Maybe someday someone will make a movie about that?

The easy road is downhill.  Challenges are hard.  Letting go of the comfort of the warm bed on a cold morning is hard.  Growth and achievement require effort.

Do the opposite of comfortable – that’s where living a heroic life starts.  Or maybe heroism starts on Skyrim® or Assassins Creed™?  But heroism does start with taking a chance.  Being bold.

When was the last time you took a chance?