Nat

The end of vacation is bittersweet, of course. It is always hard to reconcile the feeling of being completely relaxed with the imagined pressure of returning full bore into one’s responsibilities. One of the things I’m challenging myself to do this year, though, is to enjoy each nice moment without looking past it toward the next likely challenge.

So here I am, with my wife and stepdaughter safely deposited at the airport, waiting for my later flight in a great independent cafe in Palm Springs. The music and coffee are good. I have a private table with an electrical outlet and a high-speed internet connection. I’ve been able to download some movies and TV shows for my flight later today, and I’m catching up on email.

Palm Springs is one of those places where you can imagine that a large number of residents feel grateful every day for the palm trees, sunshine and mountain views that abound here. We will return next winter, as we did this year, and if we’re lucky, my stepdaughter’s field hockey team will earn an entry into the tournament they hold every Thanksgiving week right up the street from our favorite hotel. It is great fun to think that we would come back here before the end of the year.

In short, I love having a happy experience that I’m likely to repeat in the near future. My wife likes to say that we are creatures of habit, and I guess I would say that she is a creature of habit, but I’m happy to go along when the habits are so entertaining. Palm Desert is great for tennis this time of year, sunny and dry, and I took a lesson yesterday to try to revive my singles game. My instructor, Katie, had a great, easy way of thinking about the game.

Don’t think so much, she told me. It’s a simple game. Get the ball back over the net. She teaches a method that has the following slogan, “Form is not a fundamental.” What it means in the context of tennis is that you are just as likely to be responding to “an emergency situation” as to hit a shot with a perfect setup from a location you expected. Wow, what a life parallel.

In these cases, she says, do your best to get your racket on the ball and try to hang in there for a situation that’s more to your liking. Like all great instruction, and I find this especially from great athletic coaches for some reason, the most useful principles sound like a life philosophy.

So here I am in paradise for a few more hours, seeing my improved forehand approach shot in my mind, loving the bright sunshine on the sides of the Santa Rosa mountains, and thinking that it will be summer soon enough at home.

I am grateful for the chance to start over, no matter how many times I have to do so. I have started to kick my sugar habit dozens of times in the last 2 years. Usually I start on a Monday. Then, if I don’t make it to Thursday, I figure, Well, I’ll start next week. I always feel good about starting.

When I’m in the gym, I watch the hard core athletes with admiration. I used to envy them, until I realized how silly it is to feel that others’ discipline is something to envy. Nothing would keep me from approaching fitness the same way but the lack of determination to do it. That’s what I love about the Nike slogan, “Just do it.” It makes us accountable for taking control of our habits.

My habit since writing this blog has been to start and stop. In part, I stop because it requires a great commitment to be a widely read blogger, to scan other related blogs and cross-communicate with their authors. I have other projects that keep me from doing this.

Nevertheless, it is a worthy project to document here what I find about the search for happiness. More and more writers and researchers are taking the subject seriously.

My take for today is that we can always renew our intention to find a healthier way to think about our lives and our world. My great friend, Claire, told me today about the power of surrender. To surrender apparently derives from the idea of giving oneself up, or to give back more than was given. There are many efforts to which we can sensibly give ourselves up. Giving ourselves over to improving our thought is a very good start.

I played in a simple round-robin tennis tournament today with my wife and stepdaughter. Even a year ago this would have been unimaginable to me. I was terrified of under-performing. But my wife convinced me that when you play, all you have to do is make the experience pleasant for those around you, win or lose. This is so simple. It is easy for me to compliment those who play well, even if they are beating me. And the thing is that in a morning, I am bound to have some good shots along with the bad ones.

It is better not to be afraid. I am giving up certain kinds of fear. This is where renewal always begins for me.

What do you do to make tomorrow better than today?

We spent another entire day playing tennis yesterday, and I took two more lessons. I’ve now had more lessons this week than in the last 30 years combined, and it has made a huge difference.

Yesterday’s big revelation was how to change my backswing to keep my wrist and shoulders more relaxed. Putting that together with the previous lessons on footwork and ball striking helped me hit my forehands relaxed and confident for maybe the first time in my life. I know the virtue of being relaxed and confident–most of us do–, but it’s another thing to do it. For me tennis has often been a battle with my own frustration and high expectation.

Yesterday it was fun. I hit ball after ball back and pretty close to where I wanted them to go. But the best part was hitting the shot right on the sweet spot in the center of the racket. Not only do such shots feel great, but they produce an entirely different sound, kind of a resonant whump. Again and again I heard the sound. And for a brief period, I felt as if I had more than enough time to get ready to hit the ball.

There is nothing like a great teacher, who knows how to help you see yourself and believe you can be better. This week I had four of them! Remarkable fun.

Yesterday I took my second tennis lesson in two days with Dale Light, Director of Tennis at The Boulders Resort in Carefree, Arizona. If you’re ever in the area and like to play tennis, I strongly suggest you take a lesson with him. Dale worked with me on my balance on Monday, correcting a problem with my backhand that I didn’t know I had.

Yesterday, he spoke more philosophically, asking me what my purpose was in playing tennis. He said that development in tennis is just like any other area of your life: having a purpose makes it much easier to progress. I told him that after decades of being an erratic player who made no improvement, I finally wanted to be a player who is comfortable playing with strangers and not feel as if I’m embarrassing myself.

He said he thought those were reasonable goals, and he urged me to address issues of trust and commitment. Trust, he said, that you can figure out how to be ready and how to execute. Then, make a commitment to take the shot, ignoring what the outcome may be. Unless you are a professional, whether you win is not a matter of grave importance. What matters is that you not let your emotions govern your behavior.

What a revelation that tennis is like everything else. We’ll see today how it works.

My stepdaughter is starting a training regimen for high school field hockey. It’s 4 months away from tryouts, and the training schedule is designed to begin 3 months from now. We’re getting a jump on it so that she can make slow, gentle progress and not be anxious this summer.

When I was her age, I never got an early jump on things, so it thrills me to see that she sees the advantage of preparation at age 13. I think every time she does something ahead of time that she is developing a habit that will relieve her of all kinds of stress for years to come, and it makes me happy.

If there’s anything I love, it’s seeing people avoid mistakes I made when I was younger. And it’s especially sweet when it’s a person I really adore. It’s hard for me to say why I so resisted advance planning for much of my life, and I guess it doesn’t really matter as long as I continue to improve. With Nina, the key is that she really enjoys the feeling she gets from relaxing after completing a task.

When we arrived at our hotel for the first day of vacation, the first thing Nina suggested we do was her workout for that day. She wanted to get it out of the way and enjoy the rest of the day.

So there’s the lesson: when you learn to earn your rewards up front, the rewards are sweeter. None of us needs to be told to do this. It’s just a question of doing it several times and learning to like the feeling of well being and satisfaction it brings. It’s a humbling lesson to learn from your 13 year-old.

Late last year, my wife and I bought a Tempurpedic mattress. We call it the wonder bed, because it is ridiculously comfortable. It’s a great luxury to know that the final moments of the day will be relaxing, delicious even.

Tempurpedic mattress foam molds to your body like a cake mold, which makes you settle down to the point that the mattress supports each of your body parts equally. On nights after I have exercised heavily, I’m asleep virtually before my head hits the pillow. I rarely wake up in the middle of the night.

My wife and I work very hard, so it’s really nice to know that we can rest comfortably at the end of a hard day. It’s a small pleasure, but it’s one we have to look forward to every night. Including tonight.

I played tennis tonight–singles, with an old friend who hasn’t played much recently, but who is an excellent athlete.

We are very evenly matched, and we worked hard for 90 minutes to tie one another at 1 set each. We both hit some good shots, and we had a good time. I had been nervous beforehand that he would be so much better then I , that he’d be bored. But he wasn’t, which was nice.

It’s hard for me to explain why even modest athletic achievements make me feel so good. All I can guess is that I don’t get to compete in sports much anymore, and I really loved how hard we both ran down balls and tried to win.

It took awhile, but I was laughing throughout. Games are supposed to make you laugh. Ours do, and for the first time in years on the tennis court, I felt that I could become a decent player. It’s a terrific world.

Rick Reilly’s column at the back of Sports Illustrated is quickly becoming my favorite feature writing in sports. Clearly, Reilly has a big heart, and he often writes human interest stories that show sports and athletes at their best.

This week, he writes about a high school student in Everett, Massachusetts, who has loved basketball more than anything in life. Sean Cronk, a 17-year old, lives with his disabled mother in a housing project. He also has cerebral palsy. I won’t ruin the story by telling it, because Reilly writes it with pathos and warmth, and I want you to buy the magazine to read it and then keep the clipping.

Sports are big, big money, and many people lament that big time commercial sports have lost touch with what drew so many of us to sports as children–the chance to compete, to push ourselves, to learn teamwork. Reilly never forgets that what makes sports great is great people participating in them.

Please read the article about Sean Cronk. You’ll be really glad you did.

I’m exhausted at the end of this work week. In part that’s because we lost an entire day to extra air travel, but it’s also that I chased after many goals without exercise and without meeting them all.

I should know by now that I always feel rotten at the end of a week during which I don’t work out. Still, by the middle of the week, I tell myself that I’m too tired to get up and go to the gym. So I didn’t. But I’m going tomorrow. It’s a small promise to make to myself and one that makes me feel good.

On Friday night, we usually go to bed without setting an alarm. Such a small thing is cause for cheering. Tonight I’m too tired to cheer. Just write and go to bed. It feels pretty good.

And tomorrow’s a fresh start.

I was thrilled to read in USA Today that LeBron James, the basketball superstar, announced after the NBA All Star Game this weekend that Microsoft(R) and he will launch a new web site for kids and teens. The site is designed to inspire young people to push themselves to succeed. It describes how he overcame struggles and hardship in his own life. It will post challenges for kids to tackle and let them chart their progress, and it will allow LeBron to comment on how to meet challenges.

The web site is called LeBron.msn.com, and it should launch this week. James has a well-publicized interest in working with young people, and this is a great way for him to reaqch a very broad audience.

James’ web site is a great example of a person’s using his celebrity as a platform to help young people achieve. It’s fantastic to see the websphere devoted to such a promising purpose.

Good for LeBron.