Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise

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.