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Archive for April, 2017

Guidelines for Life

Sleep was late in coming. I stayed up texting with a West Coast friend and professional colleague, thinking and reminiscing about the 3 core guiding principles that helped me (and in many ways him) make it through our training and early professional careers. All 3 have stood the test of time, have continued to inform my best decisions both professional and personal, and over the 30 years now since I first said the out loud I’ve only needed to add one additional guideline.

“Knowledge is power.” One is at such a profound disadvantage if there is asymmetry in the amount of information they possess relative to those with whom they interact that at a certain point those not “in the know” cease to be independent entities. Without knowledge, awareness of the ground as Sun Tzu would say, you are at the mercy of another. You must depend upon their kindness for, well, almost everything.

“Perception is more important than reality.” The explanation of this, of course, is that perception is the reality of perceiver. While you could say that this is simply an extension of the first guideline–creating the perception is in some way controlling the knowledge–I would simply say that one need only look at the deeply held worldview of some of the U.S. voting public, their perception of what is real and what is important, to illustrate that perception comes from within. This is all the more so when dealing with “one issue” voters. Understanding this should inform your approach to any situation whatsoever. What does this individual perceive at this moment? That becomes the reality with which you will be dealing, your version notwithstanding.

“Evolution is better than revolution.” Funny to have initially stated something like that  on CrossFit.com, the home of a truly disruptive revolution in fitness, eh? Again, this CrossFit that I have so wholly embraced must be the example that renders this guideline moot. Here is where my conversation with Dave that night was so helpful, for Dave was (and still is) a man in a hurry to effect change for the better: evolution involves a conscious attempt to minimize unnecessary collateral damage. Sometimes that damage is directed at oneself, and thinking more along the lines of the “long game” is also sometimes a very reasonable approach to self-preservation. After all, the fire of revolution burns brighter the nearer it gets to the revolutionary. My friend Dave now seeks change in the cool contemplative glow somewhat removed from the fire, conscious always of the need to care for, and be careful for, the growing flock that surrounds him.

To these 3 I have added a line from the Tao te Ching: “The man who knows when enough is enough, will always have enough.” While this particular guideline has not been particularly helpful in my outward looking life, it has done more to aid in my inward looking experience than anything otherwise has (the exception being my 35 year quest to be a better husband). Those of us who live in the West are under a constant sensory barrage that demands that we submit to the need to acquire. More. More and more of everything. More because it’s, you know, more. To be honest, I gave this little more than lip service until I actually lost quite a bit of  stuff. Being reminded that almost all of it was something I wanted, rather than needed, allowed this guideline to bring an internal peace that was missing.

These 3 original guidelines have served me well lo these 30 years or so. Adding and committing to the fourth has brought me peace in the bargain. They may or not work for you; they may be nothing more than tinder to light the fire of your own guiding principles. Some day perhaps I’ll share the epiphanies of 9/11 and Heinlein that underly the tactical application of these 3 strategies, but there’s plenty to think about in these simple suggestions. “Knowledge is power.” “Perception is more important than reality.” “Evolution is better than revolution.” “Enough is enough.”

First Impressions: How You Say What You Say

Thinking about that charter school for inner city boys where the study of Latin is mandatory…

In my day job I work with folks of various backgrounds, both in terms of education and upbringing. In all walks of my public life I come in contact with an even broader swath of humanity in all regards. I routinely travel up and down the social, economic and educational ladders at work and at play. For the most part, with everyone I meet the language we all speak is English. I live in Cleveland, Ohio, USA after all. Our English, however, is hardly the same.

While we cannot truly escape our origins, as we cannot truly escape our genome, we can choose how we interact in the daily mechanics of society regardless of origin. For better or for worse this begins with how we speak. That old saw, you only get one chance to make a first impression, is especially true when you speak, and especially important because for the most part you can choose not only what you say but also how you say it.

There’s nothing new or striking about this concept, either. You can think of it as verbal situational awareness. You would (hopefully) speak differently to a priest than you would the surfer dude sitting next to you beyond the break. On the phone with the cable company should sound very different I think than on the phone with your BFF. All speech is by definition qualitatively different than a text or an email because speaking implies hearing; speaking and hearing involve the inclusion of inflection, tone, and tempo. Really basic stuff.

Why, then, is it so brutally common to hear such poor English? Poor grammar, improper word usage, a situational tone-deafness? This doesn’t even begin to touch on the concept of working vocabulary (BTW, the person with the largest working vocabulary I’ve ever met is responsible for my  little CrossFit thing). Once upon a time one heard much about “Proper English” or “The Queen’s English.” What happened?

In English we do not have the French equivalent of “Tu” vs. “Vous”. No lazy man’s way to “polite-up” our speech. A certain unearned familiarity is too often presumed. We take way too many liberties with grammar, and frankly we too infrequently make the effort at “polished” English when it’s time to do so. That first impression thing is incredibly affected when you open your mouth to speak, on the up and the down sides. It is equally jarring to hear the word “ineluctable” from a guy in faded jeans and a baseball cap turned backwards (up) as it is to hear “me and Joey are gonna go…” from a guy in a suit and starched collar (down).

The stark reality is that there are no barriers to the “up” version of English. There is no genetic, social, or economic barrier blocking the acquisition of the ability to speak well, and by extension to acquire the situational awareness to know when it is vital to do so. All that is required is the effort to learn that version of English that we know as “proper”, and the effort to learn when. Those young men learning Latin at that charter school are off to a great start. It’s not necessary to speak like this all the time. You can choose to “let your hair down” so to speak–my love for the versatility of the “F-bomb” is well known in certain circles–but a lack of virtuosity in the English domain is a choice.

There are many aspects of a “first impression” over which we may have little control. Don’t choose to let your English be one of them.

Nothing Left to Lose

“When he lost his life, it was all he had left to lose.” –Lynard Skynard

Catching up on newspapers piled up while I was away last night I happened upon an article written by David Gregory, former moderator of “Meet the Press”. Mr. Gregory was on a bit of a spiritual quest, one that coincided with some turmoil in his professional life. As part of this journey he spent some time with an Erica Brown, a Jewish educator. After listening to his professional laments she offered this stunner: who would you be if you lost it all?

Stopped me right in my tracks, that one did.

Think about that for a minute. How the question was phrased and what she was asking. Not “what would you do?” or “how would you handle it?” but “who would you be?” The implication is that who you are at any given moment is only one version of who you might be capable of being given different circumstances, however wonderful or unpleasant. It dovetails very nicely, indeed, with my recent fascination with the multiverse, the quantum physics derived concept that there is an infinite number of versions of our universe in existence at any given moment.

Spend a few more minutes thinking about what it means to lose it all. For Mr. Gregory it meant losing his dream job, a job in which who he was became inextricably linked to what he did. I get that, but Mr. Gregory is still able to seek employment as a journalist, still able to work in his field. What if you could no longer do that? Say you’re a doctor and you lose either the ability or the right to practice medicine? Think “The Fugitive”. Trust me, doctors are way more wrapped up in the “what I do is who I am” thing than journalists. Just thinking about that–being prevented from being a doctor– makes me sick to my stomach. Imagine if you couldn’t work at all. Couldn’t support yourself or your loved ones and had to depend on others. That’s starting to close in a little bit more on “losing it all” I think. Who would you be then?

There’s no way of knowing if Ms. Brown meant to go this deeply, but in the developed world we live pretty well;  there’s actually a boatload of stuff we take for granted that could be lost. What if you lost your freedom? You are incarcerated, or in some way someone gains so much leverage over you that you must do their every biding. Who would you be, what part of who you have the capability of being would come to the fore if you were no longer free? Joe Coughlin, the central character in a Dennis Lehane novel I just finished compromised his father’s position as a police captain in order to buy favor and therefore survive in prison. In so doing he lost his freedom forever, even after leaving prison. He became a man without a moral compass, ruining and even taking lives in pursuit of other men’s goals.

But even at that, Coughlin hadn’t yet lost everything. What brought him to that precipice was the loss of his people. You’ve watched “Law and Order” I’m sure. I don’t remember many individual episodes of any series I ever watch, but one “Law and Order” dealing with loss comes to mind. The detectives discover a man in an institution who is mute, nearly catatonic. They need his testimony; he is the only witness to a heinous crime. In order to gain access to his memory they obtain a court order to treat him for his depression. His recovery is miraculous, and initially he is grateful for his awakening, grateful to meet distant relatives who are delighted for the return of an uncle they’d lost. All well and good until it is time to testify and we learn that he lost his job, his ability to work, and his entire immediate family in that heinous crime. Awakening means remembering that he has truly lost it all.

Who would you be if you lost it all? This poor man had nothing, and he discovered that without his people he was no one. Who would you be? His answer was “no one at all”. He refused treatment and slid back inward to nothing.

There’s a point here. A couple of them, actually. The first is that each one of us has much, much more of pretty much everything than we realize. Most of what we might lose is not really all that close to any type of “everything”, and that should inform how we view what we do have and what we are willing to do to keep it. Who would you be BEFORE losing something in order to not actually lose it? To know this is to know what we are willing to do if we need to fight not to lose everything. It’s a little closer to knowing who we really are, now.

Read this backwards from here. It hurts to lose stuff. It’s hard to get by with less money if you’ve tasted more, especially if you think you’ve become someone else because of that stuff. It’s worse if you kinda like that someone; losing the kind of job Mr. Gregory had stings. Time and again, though, we see that true loss is less easily quantified than a spreadsheet or income statement or title. To lose your people is to truly lose everything. No amount of fight is too great to not have to learn who you would be after this type of loss. Losing your freedom makes it easier to lose your people. Someone else plots your every course. Who you are needs to be someone who does as much as humanly possible to remain free.

Mr. Gregory seems to have made this leap. In the end his job was simply what he did at the time for work. Losing it actually brought his spiritual quest home, to his people. That’s the other point, right? It’s your people. You’ve not lost everything if you’ve not lost your people. Know who your people are and hold them close. Cherish and nurture them. Do it out loud and without either fear or shame.

Do whatever it takes to never have to learn who you would be if you did, truly, lose everything.

Sunday musings 4/16/17

Sunday musings…

1) Easter. On this, the most holy of Holy Days in all of Christendom, Happy Easter to all

2) Fitness. I find that I have become something approaching a ceremonial fitness adherent. It is not an attractive look, sadly. Fitness is a habit, one that I’ve drifted away from of late.

Time to dial it back in.

3) Tracker. The MIO Slice is the 4th fitness tracker I have now tried. And abandoned. The attraction for the slice was its “always on” measurement of PAI or Personal Activity Intelligence metric. Based on the degree and duration of exercise that elevated your heart rate above your resting rate, the PAI has been validated as a health measure that directly relates to longevity in Swedes. For a measurement geek like me, it was simply irresistible.

One sticky little issue, so common to all the other trackers extent: the damn thing doesn’t work.

Listen, if you’re gonna create a measurement that depends on tracking heart rate, it stands to reason that you should be able to…you know…measure heart rate. The Slice can’t, at least not on my wrist. 60 minutes after a WOD in which I got up to ~100% of my age-adjusted max predicted HR, my little tracker dude was still reading a pulse of 115/minute. Feeling pretty fresh and relaxed I was skeptical. Two fingers to my carotid, a $15 Casio and a 0:15 investment of time revealed that my gadget was off by a scant—wait for it—100%. My pulse was 58.

While it may turn out that the PAI is, indeed, a valid measure of fitness/health (though it skews way too far in emphasizing aerobic exercise IMO), the MIO Slice is just one more example of the folly of fitness trackers in general. They are, at best, an amusing diversion only slightly more complex than a toy. The notion that an employer can assess the health (and therefore insurability) of an employee by using a fitness tracker is ludicrous. The best one I’ve used so far basically just made crap up, but the Nike Fuel Band and its silly Fuel Points was still the most fun of the bunch.

Maybe I can score one on Amazon.

4) Invisible. A family member is about 95% of the way to being diagnosed as having Celiac Disease. This is what you have when the ingestion of gluten, a protein found in grains, incites an inflammatory reaction in the lining of your intestines. This process has prompted Clan bingo to take a deep dive into the science of this disease, and it has exposed us to some interesting patterns of behavior in our society.

You can’t see Celiac disease, and this is where the societal observations come into play. It’s not unlike diabetes, or most of the more common mental illnesses that plaque us. People who suffer from all of these look pretty much exactly like people who don’t. Same thing with folks who have Celiac disease. I won’t bore you with the science, but suffice it to say that over time the damage done to the intestinal tract from exposure to gluten in those afflicted is as severe and threatening to health as one sees in heart disease. Like all of these examples, one only knows if you are talking with someone who has Celiac disease if you are told so.

It’s astonishing how hard folks work not to believe you.

At the moment I am at 36,000 feet, flying home with Mrs. bingo from a visit with Lovely Daughter in the Low Country of South Carolina. We saw everything from “I can’t guaranty that there’s no cross-contamination in that batch of ice cream” (saving a possible insult to the gut) to “Really? Subbing rice for the noodles ruins that dish” (leavening the meal with guilt). Funny how some diseases prompt incredulity, even judgment, isn’t it? Think back a bit to our discussion about depression and suicide for another example.

One need not immerse oneself in learning the details of every “hidden” malady in order to prepare yourself for the inevitable interactions you will have. Sometimes having a specific checklist for every eventuality is simply not feasible. Here it is probably better to simply develop a kind of emotional expertise, one that allows you to accept what you are hearing as true and move to accommodation as your first response. It’s just another example of how a “kindness reflex” makes things easier.

It’s Easter. What better day to start.

I’ll see you next week…

Your “Who” Is More Important: Masters Sunday musings

Master’s Sunday is the day I think I miss my Dad the most. We’d be on the phone dissecting the action, second guessing each decision and reminiscing about our respective visits to Augusta National (sadly, neither one of us ever played there.). In many ways the game of golf was the tie that bound my Dad to my brother and me. In Jr. High School he invited us into his world; we did whatever it took to stay there.

The older I get the more important my “who” becomes. Thinking about golf today has really brought this home for me. I walked away from golf 9 years ago because I couldn’t stand to be average, let alone not very good. Doing so put way, WAY too much emphasis on the “what”, on the golf itself. It was entirely reasonable for me to take a break from golf after my injury because it literally hurt to swing a club. But 9 years?

Let me be really clear: I don’t miss the game of golf. I played in high school and a bit in college, and I’ve played literally thousands of rounds on some of the most famous courses in America. The game of golf doesn’t owe me anything at all. What I do miss, though, is being in the company of other people (mostly men, I’ll admit) who are doing something that makes them happy. More than that, since you almost always get to choose who you’re playing with, you are always in good company.

It’s been a wonderful day to remember that “who” is so much more important than “what”. I am part of a bunch of middle-aged knuckle-heads who met as fathers of pre-schoolers and then bonded on some of the most God-forsaken dogpatch golf courses imaginable. No matter. We were together. We celebrated the 60th birthday of one of our pals at breakfast where my guys regaled me with side-splitting tales of this year’s golf trip to South Carolina. If they’ll have me, next year my “new game” is likely to produce a few follies that we can laugh about during a breakfast to come.

My brother is an extraordinary golfer, as is my best friend of 40 years. My sister’s husband, too. My son will eventually become a very good golfer; his pride will accept nothing less. Lil’bingo and “Lovely Daughter’s” husband are both eager to play as well. My game will sadly fail to match up, but that’s no matter. How I play is a “what”. It always was, even though it took me an awfully long time to figure that out. What I now hope to get, and what I hope to give each time I get a chance, is to be part of a group that understands that the “what” they are doing is so much less important the “who” that they are doing it with. All of these men have asked me many times to join them, and this year I will finally do just that.

Golf, CrossFit, Cards…whatever. “Who” is the reason you are there.

 

Friendship Rings

There are, I think, 5 groups of people around each one of us. True friends occupy the closest orbit, the small and intimate center of the bullseye. The next ring holds our Friendly Acquaintances, folks with whom we share happiness but not necessarily the intimacy, ease, and confidences of true friendship. Surrounding this ring is the one holding our Acquaintances, folks we simply know. Orbiting these concentric rings is a (hopefully tiny) globe of enemies; sadly we all have some. All of this floats in the vast sea of those unmet.

Do you know the difference between a “friendly acquaintance” and a friend? What draws the line for you? How many true friends do you have? What does it take for you to be someone’s friend? Is your bullseye static or dynamic? What moves people into and out of the rings in your friendship bullseye? Is there room in your bullseye for a new true friend? How do you feel when it becomes clear that someone is just a friendly acquaintance and not the friend you thought? How does it feel to make a new friend?

Beth and I have had a very dynamic bullseye of late, prompting me to return to this yet again as I try to make sense of recent events. Old friends lost and found. Discovering friendly acquaintances in our group of friends, acquaintances among our friendly acquaintances. New friends who have arrived through an open side door, unbidden and unannounced, to fill the empty spaces abandoned by others.

One can never have enough friends.

The Ghosts of Savannah

Savannah is populated by hundreds, maybe thousands, of ghosts. In truth if we met any  when we visited I either didn’t notice or don’t remember. They, the ghosts that is, are all said to be sad or angry. If Savannah does indeed have ghosts it stands to reason that they ALL aren’t angry or sad, and that got me to thinking about ancestors.

Have you ever examined your heritage? You know, looked at what’s swimming in your gene pool, and where it’s been through history? There’s probably a ton in there, probably a ton of information that is worth knowing. History is awfully cool, a rich and vibrant panorama that can be viewed from any spot and examined in either direction. Your OWN history is like this. You should know your own story.

The entry of grandchildren has focused my attention on our family’s stories. Beth went through hers while she filled in a “My Family” book for the Man Cub. I have my version of that book lying on my nightstand, and I’d better hop to it and fill it in with my Mom’s help the next time we get together. There’s no indication that Mom is planning on joining the brigade of ghosts any time soon, but just the same, she and I should make time to do this.

Some of your own heritage may still be around, their panorama moving ever slower as they spool toward the end of their part of the story. Are they happy? Are they fulfilled? Have they imparted all they, and you, need? If they were to leave this life, if there be ghosts, would they be those quiet, happy types, or the sad angry ones that provide fodder for tour guides “crawling” the haunts of Bogart and his ilk? Time grows short for your living heritage, for them and for you.

If there be ghosts, might you be wise to learn their stories before they cross over?

Optimizing Effort/Outcome=Minimal Effective Dose

Some time ago I wrote about the Minimum Effective Dose (MED), the concept in which we seek to optimize our results with the smallest amount of whatever it is that we are using to achieve that outcome. The quest to find the MED is one that crosses quite easily between my day job (medical) and my own quest for health (CrossFit). A quick mention of Eva T in Outside magazine and the program she uses with her clients sounds a lot like MED. The Everyday Math column in the WSJ provided an enhanced vocabulary for the journey.

Sometimes the MED really is a “something” you take. Here one thinks of medicine or food, for example. More often is the case that we are looking at a dose of time or effort. Or perhaps both. In this case we are seeking to optimize the effort as it relates to the outcome, to make the value of outcome divided by effort as large as possible. The rate limiting factor here is the Law of Diminishing Returns, of course: at some point additional effort produces such a small incremental increase in the outcome that it becomes not worth making. This applies to everything from WODs/week (or day) to decorating a birthday cake. At a certain point you just have to feel you’ve succeeded.

How, then, to know when you have reached this optimal level? Eugenia Cheng, the mathematician who wrote the WSJ piece, offers the concept of the “minimal acceptable standard”. Once she has reached this outcome the additional effects garnered from more effort have moved beyond the point where Diminishing Returns kicks in and she simply accepts the outcome. We would call these “minimal standards” goals, but the concept is essentially the same. We want an outcome; setting a target or a goal is step one in optimization.

Cheng then goes on to refine optimization with a discussion about boundaries. One is your goal, of course. In real life others also exist, things like a 24 hour day and a 7 day week and the need to make a living. The dose you choose, both qualitatively (what it is) and quantitatively (how much you get) is unavoidably affected by boundary conditions over which you have less control.In the end no outcome worth getting happens without effort. Health, friendship, or the unraveling of a gnarly math problem–you’re going to put effort in to get your results out.

Maximizing your outcome-to-effort ratio is just another way to say you are seeking your Minimum Effective Dose, in CrossFit and elsewhere.

The Final Glide Path

My gentle, sweet, and much beloved father-in-law is now on his final glide path. As sad as we all are to be witness to this last landing we are equally joyous at this bonus year we’ve all enjoyed. What a gift it has been. You see, Bob was told he had a scant few months to live almost 1 1/2 years ago. Through a combination of good fortune, excellent modern medical care, a strong foundation of fitness (Bob’s trainer used CrossFit principles in his training!), and his drive to thrive, he has graced us with innumerable moments of love and joy we had no expectation of sharing.

Nothing focuses your attention on what matters in life so completely as imminent death. It’s quite a shame, actually. What we as an extended family have done over these last 15 months or so has come to seem quite natural and, while not easy, not terribly difficult to pull off either. Our efforts have centered on love and kindness. Full stop. We have all made an effort to connect so that we might express and share our love. That we might give ourselves extra opportunities to be kind to one another. It has certainly taken a bit of work, and for some of us it has tasked us with looking carefully at how we prioritize our lives. In the end, though, we all discovered that the effort/outcome equation has fallen squarely on the good side: we got more out of the effort than we ever thought we could.

Listen, it’s never the same before you see the glide path beginning. To conclude this little snippet by imploring you to totally re-order your life as if you, or someone special to you, is soon to land their flight forever is so trite it’s little more than drivel. It’s not natural, and none of us can do it. What is possible, though, is to inject just a bit more of that love and kindness into your everyday thoughts and actions with your loved ones now. If you get the same kind of optimization of your effort as we all in Beth’s family have received (and as an aside, what my family achieved during my Dad’s illness) perhaps you can try to add just a little more of each over time. It’s very CrossFitty, that. A little more love and a little more kindness offered today in the hope that tomorrow you and your loved ones will be a little bit closer, a little bit happier together than you were yesterday.

As for us, all that is left is to fasten our seatbelts as we hope for fair winds and the gentlest of landings.

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