Nat

I just got off the phone with my childhood best friend, Ted. I suppose that term is unfair in many ways, “best friend.” But children of a certain age think about who is their best friend in the way they later think about who is their girlfriend or boyfriend.

In my case, Ted held a special position because he played an essential role in helping me learn what was important to me. When we were in 7th grade, we used to have to walk past the 9th graders to get to our first period English class. Each morning, we passed two 9th grade boys, Richard and Tom, who bullied us and whom we liked to provoke. Or rather, Ted liked to provoke them and enjoyed it more when I was there to share the beating.

One morning in particular, I remember Ted’s telling me what we were going to say to taunt them. “Do we have to do it today?” I asked. “I really don’t want the beating.” “Yes,” Ted said. “But we do it every day.” “Is it funny every day?” he asked me. “Yes,” I said. “Then we’re doing it again today.”

For Ted, the price of a good laugh could be pretty high, and he taught me to be willing to pay. I was never as funny as Ted, but I could take a beating. I’m glad I don’t get hit any more, but I miss running that gauntlet to start the day.

It was good to hear Ted’s voice. It always is.

I’m finding it hard not to be trite the last few days. Fatigue makes me timid.

So here’s the challenge: how to share enough from my experience to help others find greater happiness when there are days I am not happy. Two years ago, Michael and I started talking about how to be happier. Naturally, there are systems people hold out to you as a path to happiness. There are also activities like meditation, prayer, service to others. They bring you a sense of purpose and well being.

What we promise is honesty. We will tell you what we try and what works, and we will look for help from other sources.

Tonight I had a great time at dinner with some friends from work. It was simple fun. A little rehash of the day’s events and some story telling. I’m a fan of appreciating the good things that happen to me. Tonight it was remembering how much I enjoy the company of my coworkers.

What does this have to do with determination? Just that last night I wasn’t thinking beyond the burden of driving late night through a snow storm to get to my hotel. Tonight I was sitting with friends in a warm restaurant. I just needed to hang in there for a few hours while things took a turn for the better.

It was worth the wait.

Flo’s post http://cloud9000.com/flo/2007/01/30/moving-forward/  and Michael’s, to which she refers, raise an essential point. There is no progress in looking backwards (though as I say that, I wonder about Freudian psychotherapy). For me that’s true. My tendency is to look too far forward. Flo is right: the power of meditation is watching only the present moment.

Too often at work I’m wondering what I should be doing next, after I finish my current task. It would be more productive to finish the current task.

At my writing teacher’s suggestion, I am writing poetry now, to develop the knack of finishing things. When you finish anything, it gets easier to let the future worry about itself.

This sounds pretty trite, but the reminder isn’t. I’m afraid to look the present squarely in the eye sometimes. I’m worried I won’t like my options. But people I admire like their options. Surely I could copy them.

I’m in the mood to give practical advice. So here it is for tonight. Find friends who know how to attack the present head on, whether or not they are intimidated. Flo does that. Michael does that. Eirene does that. That’s a lot of models to start with.

Michael and I talked yesterday about the importance of keeping promises, starting with promises you make to yourself. He takes these very seriously, and I had to admit that I have tended for years to disregard the promises to myself. Every time I do, it makes me feel rotten. Not only because I want to take myself seriously, but also because I don’t want to undermine my confidence that I will keep my promises to others.

Michael asked me to start with a promise to blog yesterday, and I’ve almost kept it by writing today. In fact, I plan to blog twice today, so that I really feel caught up.

I suppose the point of writing about this is to remind myself that the future, my future, is in my hands, and it begins with the next thing I think and do. How much more would I like where I’m headed if I’m the one who decides what to do and where to go? Writing, meditating, reading. All things I love to do. My promises will start with these.

Stay tuned.

I take my inspiration wherever I can find it, and often it comes from really great pieces of writing that take me by surprise. Tonight, I read a column on the NBA by espn.com’s Bill Simmons called “Thank you for the Suns.” In it, Simmons claims that the Phoenix Suns basketball team may become the greatest basketball team in 20 years. What thrilled me reading the piece is that I’m not much of a basketball fan these days, and I’m unlikely to start watching a lot of games, but Simmons loves the game and makes you want to love it too.

He argues that we’re in an era of pro sports when there are no truly great players in the team sports. This leaves him hoping that the Suns may be the great team he’s been hoping to find. Then he builds the case for why they are such good players and so fun to watch. By the end of the article, I wanted to see a game on TV, and I wanted to watch them play the Celtics when they come to town.

What really grabbed me about the article was that I like it when anyone is really excited about anything and is able to explain why. I love watching sports because you occasionally see those moments when athletes, through their tremendous hard work and collaboration, attain a level of excellence that exceeds your expectations. It’s rare in my corporate job that I experience the fast pace and rhythm of a fast game.

It’s really nice to see adults take child’s play and enhance it with surpassing diligence and execution. Read the column if you like sports at all.

I went to a personal training studio today. At the first visit, they don’t start the training, they just interviewed me about my goals and my circumstances. I liked the manager’s approach. He didn’t try to sell me. He just asked a lot of questions and reminded me to be realistic about what I expect.

That’s really my biggest problem with exercise: I know how hard I would have to work for the results I’d like, and I’m just not prepared to work that hard. I have two simple fitness problems. First, I really won’t make the time to work out every day, and second, I eat too many sweets. Ahmal told me that there are simple solutions to both problems.

For the first, I just have to make the most of the time I will spend. However, he said that if I’m successful building a routine, then I will likely get to the point where I want to do it more often than not. And to avoid lots of sweets, I just need to force myself to eat more protein during the day. “It creates satiety,” he said.

I really like it when my prospective trainer uses a word I don’t know.

I guess the point is that I already know these things about myself. I know why I’m not in perfect shape, and I know what to do to get back in it. Ahmal didn’t pretend he had any silver bullet. He simply said that they would try to get me in a groove where I could see what the results were going to be of adopting some new habits.

Who knew a gym owner (and he’s not really that) would favor listening and a soft sell. One of my favorite things is to be pleasantly surprised in a way I find surprising. It happpened today.

And I only ate two pieces of coffee cake after dinner. And a sugar free fudgesicle. That’s a light night for me.

Last week I discovered an amazing poet, Franz Wright. The sad thing is that he won the Pulitzer prize in 2004, but I’d never heard of him. Christopher Lydon interviewed him on the terrific radio program “Open Source.”
Wright battled addiction and depression for many years, lost his writing gift, found love, went through rehab, found the Catholic church, converted and recovered his writing gift. 5 years later he won the Pulitzer prize, for a volume called “Walking to Martha’s Vineyard.”
Here’s one of the poems.

The Word ‘I’

Harder to breathe
near the summit, and harder

to remember
where you came from,

why you came

Winter’s
harder, and harder to say
the word “I”
with a straight face,
and sleep–

who can sleep? Who has time

to prepare for the big day
when he will be required
to say goodbye to everyone, including
the aforementioned pronoun, relinquish
all earthly attachment
completely, and witness
the end of the world–

harder in other words
not to love it

not to love it so much

[From Walking to Martha's Vineyard, 2003 copyright Franz Wright, Alfred A. Knopf books]

Buy the book. It’s like going to church and discovering that God is incredibly eloquent.

I’ve always loved New Year’s resolutions, even though I often make the same ones and even though I often give them up sometime between February 1 and June. What I like is the hopefulness they inspire, the sense that anything is possible and that this time will be different. By which I mean that this time I will be different.

It’s a great way to start a new year, believing the best of myself, and I always do, but I’m especially hopeful this year because of all the organizing I’ve accomplished since Christmas. First, I spent last week cleaning up my new office at work, and not a superficial clean up either. I removed every single file from the drawers, devised and executed a color-coded filing system, and replaced everything, complete with printed file labels. I’ve been heartened by recent articles (including one in the NY Times) about the connection between messiness and productivity (there’s a strong connection for some people), but I really do feel more ready to work when my space is well ordered. I also hung pictures on the walls and rearranged my computer and monitor. Now I can work at my table and host guests.

My wife Sarah, my stepdaughter, and I also spent this weekend arranging Sarah’s new office, which included assembling some complicated Ikea furniture, so there’s mutual satisfaction in both of us preparing our new work space.

The icing on the cake for me was finally putting up a new mailbox to replace the one that a friend destroyed by backing her car into it nearly two years ago.

I’m ready to start many things, but especially to start having a good year. It’s a relief to have enough experience to know what will fire me up. Here’s a great quote from Rainer Maria Rilke: “Now let us welcome the new year, full of things that have never been…”

Happy New Year!