The Last Entry

Well, I turned 50.  Now what?

There is a scene in the movie "Finding Nemo" where the fish have escape the aquarium, have somehow navigated their way across all other obstacles between the dentist's office and into the water of the harbor.

There they are, with great planning and physical prowess, they have made their goal.  There is only one problem, they are each in plastic bags, floating in the harbor.  One of the fish says "Now what?"

The goal of this blog was to capture some of my thoughts as I reached this milestone. Now what?

Someone once asked Seth Godin "How much do you think you should charge for your blog?"  He restated the question by saying, "How much would I be willing to pay in order to write my blog?"  I take his point.  The journey of writing this blog has been an exceptional benefit to me.  To my knowledge, maybe one or two people glance at this site every few days, but for me to challenge myself to write something that others may read and may use in their lives has forced me to up my game.

Now I end this blog and I thank every one of you who has looked at it.

I'm now 50.  I reached my goal and I hope some of my words on this blog has helped you in your journey of life somehow.

Tomorrow I start a new blog.  "How I intend to make $3 million and give it all away."

In my 50 years and in my travels around the globe, I've been amazed at what people would do for money.  Tragic really, things that really tugged at my soul, things I reeled from in horror.  Yes, there was the ever present prostitution in Juarez, Mexico, Seoul, Korea, Bangkok, Thailand, but there was also this old man in Beijing China I saw 1989 who would take a metal rod, heat it up with a blowtorch  and then stick the red hot metal to his tongue.  He walked around the audience doing this so that we could see the steam and hear the sizzling noise of the damage to his body.  There was also this young girl who danced on broken glass, perhaps these were demonstrations of self-control, a Zen type way of defeating a physical threat, or some kind of theatric trick, but to me, these were examples of the many destructive things people do for money....I'm so sorry I was part of that audience, I am so sorry people feel it necessary to do such things with their lives.

Perhaps people need to do these things in-order to survive another day.   If so, I'd like to find and prove there is another way....

Money should not be something that we end up destroying ourselves for in order to get more of.  It should only be a tool to help us get to where we need to go - and that's it.  It should not be hoarded and it should not be lusted after.

Almost everyday my mail box is stuffed with requests from charities asking for money.  The inbox in my hotmail account is almost useless now because of scams, charities and businesses trying to get me to send money to them.

Pretty selfish really and because so many people are doing this, somehow this makes such behavior acceptable - even the norm.

I'm going to go the other way.  I'm not going to break myself, my family or anything else in the pursuit of the dollar bill.  I've had a goal for sometime now to make / acquire $3 Million in a legal, honest way and then (here's the kicker) give it all away. Yes, all of it.  Done. Good-bye, back to my real life.....You guys have a nice day.

No, I'm not going to give it to you.  There are specific charities and organizations that will receive it.

The challenge of the process is can I make / aquire / hang onto this money in a legal, kind, honest way AND then can I give it all away once I reach the first half of the goal?

How much money is enough?  People always want more.  Can I resist this?  Can I give instead of take?

This blog will up my game and I plan on writing it each day until I reach the goal or until Nov 23, 2016.

Wish me luck!

Don't send money.  Send me you good thoughts if you can.  Send me ideas that can help me get there.  I know I can't make this goal alone, but I'm going to start alone and I'm going to start trying alone, right now.

The journey and joy of making this money (and giving it all away) will not incorporate a process of taking it away from someone or something else.  The process (in part) will be to create something of value, worth such a sum.  You can find it here:  My next blog.

Live well!

-Chris

Time makes a difference

In the December 2011 issue of Wired, Jeff Bezos (the CEO of Amazon) talks about the "culmination of the many things we've been doing for 15 years."

The point I take away is that it's ok to try to be the #1 student in your high school, but if you don't make that goal, so what?

 Maybe you just need to expand your time horizon 2, 4, 10 or 20 years.  At 50, with great diligence, you will be somewhere.  And the game always changes.  It favors the prepared and those who have tested themselves and know their capability, but like a football, nobody really knows which direction this is life going to bounce.

Be prepared, but be prepared to change.

Today I am 50 years old.  One of the greatest mistakes of my 50 years was to underestimate my capacity and my ability.  At the end of high school, I think I was closer to the bottom ten than I was to the top ten.  Last year I finished my Master's Degree and graduated with honors.  It just took me a little longer, that's all - and I never gave up!

My physics book in college said that given enough time, even the motor on a refrigerator could lift the world.  Time matters. What we do with time really matters!

So let's get back to work on our goals and dreams.  Let us keep up the diligence and deliberateness as we continue to plan and strive to be that person we want to be.

Who knows where we will be in 20 years or 30?  But hopefully you and I will meet each other then and we will be that much closer to our goals.

I wish you a happy forever.

-Chris

It's been a good life....

Yesterday, apparently a young airman who was going through some problems at work brought a pistol into his work and was hold up in that building for hours.

Life is tough.  Things don't work out as planned, people let you down.  Things don't turn out as expected.  Still let's take each life event with a grain of salt.

We can't take this world too seriously.  We'll never get out of this place alive anyway.

So, let's do our best.  If we trip and stumble, so what?  Won't be the first time.  It won't be the last and maybe if we try just one more time, maybe if we show up for work today and give our best, maybe we will get that promotion.  Maybe things will work out as planned or even better.

I don't know what happened to that young airman.  When I left, the building he was in was surrounded by the flashing lights of cop cars too numerous to bother to count.

This world is no place to go crazy.  It is already a crazy place.

Inside each of us is the potential person capable of despicable acts.  That is not news.  The news is how do you  find the greater good?  How do you control yourself even in the most difficult situations?

We all have good reasons for going crazy and doing stupid things.  But really, maybe there is a greater reason is to live that second of life longer to help this wounded world become somehow a little better.

It has been a good life.

It didn't turn out as planned.

In the end it was even better.

But that middle part, man, what a roller coaster!!

The Joy of Work

Is there such a thing as "Joy of Work"?

I think there is.  Kahlil Gibran in his book "The Prophet" writes:

"You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.
For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, 
and to step out of life's procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.

When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.
Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?"




Yes, work is not easy.  But it should be done with the joy of giving for you are giving of yourself.  You are giving the few hours you have of your life remaining as you walk this earth.


So give the best you can to work.  Look back on this journey knowing what you gave today was valuable and that you gave willingly to help the world become a better place. 

If you follow every dream, you might get lost....

Neil Young has a song that says, "If you follow every dream, you might get lost."  I think he was dealing with middle age when he wrote that.

You can't follow every dream.  You have to choose one thing over another, and that decision leads to another decision which carries you to other decisions and gradually a path is formed that defines the direction of your life.

At 50 I look back on my path and I consider the direction it is taking me.  I freeze in time and look at the decisions I'm making today and the ones I will likely make tomorrow.  This path leads in the direction I chose, but now I fully consider the impact I am having on the earth, the impact on other living things and especially the impact I am having on those who have chosen to walk my path with me.

Life moves on with or without me.  I am lucky, I'm alive at 50.  In a few of the countries I've worked in, the average male lives to the age of 47.  My stomach is full, my house is warm and to my knowledge, nobody is planning on killing me anytime soon.  So I have the privilege of taking the time to look back on my life and reflect on the decisions I've made and the path of life I have lived up to this point.

In hind sight, many of my choices were not the right ones.  They've caused me and others to suffer.  But I made them thinking they were the best choices available.  Some I was able to correct, others I had to just learn from.  Many I would like to choose to forget.  I think the real important ones, the ones that really matter, you don't forget, even if you want to.

There are regrets and as I approach 50, I can get lost in regrets.  Thank goodness I can't remember everything.

I have three more days until I turn 50.  It has been a good run.  The gifts I have been given in this life have been more than I could ever give back.

So I make a pact with myself that I will give more, these last few years left of my life.  Somehow I will help the world become a better place and that when I can't, I'll gracefully bow out of the way.

This is a picture taken in Angola, a beautiful country full of beautiful people. When I was there, they were just recovering from their 27 year civil war.  Look closely at the bullet holes in the building behind me.  Now look at how clean the street is.  I tell you, these people, this country, will someday rise to the beauty they really are inside.

Rubbing shoulders with greatness, a CU graduate retires

My Boss, CAPT Frank Doris is retiring soon.  As bosses go, he was one of the best.

He wasn't soft on me, but he knew my strengths and weaknesses and he was able to put me into situations where I could do the greatest good.  He challenged my weaknesses in a subtle way.  He knew when to press and he knew when to back off.  He demanded my best and I always tried to give that it to him.

Even when sometimes my best wasn't quite good enough, he was able to underwrite my mistakes and make the best out of the whole situation. 

He treated me as a peer.  I was no peer.  I looked up to him.  I was inspired by his example.

He could grasp complex concepts, live with ambiguity and see problems with clarity.  He could sort out what really needed to be done and give us the clear guidance of how to do it.  

He could build a team of people and get things done while still building morale and individual potential.   

He had candor and he had courage.  He was a great boss and a great friend.  

I'll miss him.  

Maybe what he leaves behind in me is a guy who is a little smarter, a little stronger and little more knowledgeable of my real capabilities.

CAPT Frank Doris (CU Graduate) flying a Navy Jet

Stand and Deliver

"Stand and deliver" is a quote I read out of President Grant's memoir.  I don't recall the details, but he was in a bit of trouble, facing one those career ending events that crop up every once in a while.  Something had happened very bad and at least part of it was Grant's fault.  General Grant said, "I had to turn and face the music, I had to stand and deliver."  That might not be the exact quote, but pretty close.

Anyway, General Grant decided he had to face the problem and he did.  I use the word had because that's kind of guy he was.  He felt bound by his duty as a human being to face problems of this magnitude head on.

To read his memoir is refreshing.  Most Generals write books that sound like, "You guys don't understand how great I am so let me write it down for you." President Grant's book was quite the opposite, very humble, very self-deprecating.

He finished it 10 days before he died of throat cancer.  He and his family were completely broke during that time and he wrote the book so his family would have some money to live on.  The book still lives, is still in print and provided his family with a comfortable living after it was first published.

Again, he stood, faced the music and delivered to the very end.

Yes, that is an example I strive to emulate, especially when things go very, very wrong.

Listening to friends and enemies

"Chris, you are getting fat."

Hummmm, this is not what I want to hear. This must be an enemy talking to me.  Or maybe it is somebody with great character and candor that is concerned about my well being.  No, no that certainly couldn't be the case, could it?.... Hummmm.

Sometimes our friends , our mirrors, our clothes tell us things we don't want to hear.  That doesn't mean we shouldn't listen.

The average American adult gains 1-2 pounds every year.  Now that is not much, but after around 30, you also start losing muscle mass.  So if you were a young, virile, trim 18 year old High School football playing Senior at 185 pounds in 1980;  you could be a 247 pound middle-aged man of little distinction in 2011.

I weigh 204 pounds.  The gods have been kind to me, but I defiantly have some issues that need to be taken care of.

Weight is pretty easy to see, once you decide to open your eyes.  Other things in life are much more subtle.  Perhaps it is wise to take an active role in listening to both our friends and our enemies, even when they are telling us things we don't want to hear.

You are never good enough and there is always a better guitar player on the room

I believe we often assess ourselves as less capable than we really are.

This, in the short term, makes our life a little easier.

We don't have to deliver our best work.

In fact, we have little reason to even develop our best work with this attitude.

 Truth is, we are good enough and we are called to develop ourselve to be even better.

I made a few mistakes playing guitar in Mass today.  No body seemed to notice.  They would have noticed the absence of music had I chose to sleep in.

Show up, do your best work, learn from mistakes and continue to give as best you can.

How do you measure success?

In 8 days I turn 50.  Was I successful?  Really?  At what?

A common measurement is the size of a person's house, the worth of his car, the amount of money in his bank account.  How successful his children are, the status of his marriage, the person he marries, the job he has.

I can't say with any certainty that I was successful in any of these measurements.  I can say I've done my best work.  I can say I've given each of these metrics I've full consideration and I've tried really, really hard to look good on these grounds.

But I have not been successful.  Maybe its been 50 years of learning and my success is just around the corner.  Or maybe, most insidious of all, I've been following the wrong dream.  I've been living up to an artificial metric that does not really matter.  Unfortunately, I think I've been following the wrong dream.

So now what?

Well, every once in a while, during these 50 years, I've got it right.  I stayed with the sick person.  I stood up for someone who was being mistreated or slandered.  Every once in a while I would play a board game, throw a football or Monopoly with my kids.

So for the big swath of 50 years, I was a failure, but every once in a while, I hit a home run.

Here is to home runs.  Lets hope I get the next few years right.

 

 

Loyalty

It is a funny word, loyalty.  It used to be the most important concept as I was growing up.  Now some people see it as an old, outdated, bad habit.

I think that this concept has been with us for thousands of years and as such, there must be something to it.

I still hold the concept dear.  I've been burned hard by many who feign loyalty and then change their colors at their most important moment.

I'll be burned again, likely.  But it is unlikely that I'll be burned by the same people as last time.

I have great faith that this will all workout, I just need to learn who to trust.

Moving forward, 10 days to 50

As the sun rises today, I realize that I am 10 days away from turning 50.

It is just a number, but it represents change.

A change in relationships, my kids need less and less of me.  A change in society, a very prominent retirement association has been goading me to join its members.  A change in perspective.  I cannot relive my life, but I can start again.

So what next?

To make a plan and to live in the moment.

This old guitar ain't mine to keep....

In Neil Young's song, "This Old Guitar"he talks about an instrument with almost human attributes.  Neil's deeper message is that we don't live forever.  Even a nice sounding guitar must be taken care of and if possible, passed to others, for we do not live forever.

I think this is an important metaphor.  Our bodies don't last forever, our houses don't last forever.  And we will, at the end of our lives, depart from all of our possessions.

Seth Godin encourages the readers of his books to pass the books on to other people who might need them.  I've given every one of his books away after I have read them.  The information he stored in those books doesn't leave me when I give these books to others.  If anything, the message gets clearer in my mind and now I have someone to talk to about the book's contents.

As I approach 50 years old, my life is full of things I should give away and let go of.  I strive every day to clean something up, organized something and to give something to somebody in need.

Yesterday I went to a homeless vets' shelter and gave some guitar lessons.  It wasn't a 'thing' necessarily that I gave away yesterday.  Yesterday,  I gave of my time.  

To give something away means I need to think about its use and why I have it in my life now.  I then go down the thought process of how I got it and its value to me.  Then of course, I think about who needs it and what  relative value will it become to them.  These are hard things to think about.  It is about making decisions.

If I hold on to any of this stuff past my death, it becomes a hindrance to those who have to clean up the mess once I am gone.

Neil sings, "This old guitar ain't mine to keep.  I'm only taking care of it now. "

Nothing is here for me to keep.  What I have is only on loan for a little while.  What I have, I must take care of.  What I can't take care of, I must let go of.

Running

I remember a body I once had that could run 7 min. miles. That body is no longer with me. What I have instead is a bit of a mystery. This body remembers the wt lifting, the swimming and the running, but it is not quite within the capability of its former self. To train this body takes more time, more focus, more discipline and even so, it breaks much easier.

Should I accept this? No.

I have to train my body because some day I may really need it to perform.

See you on the track! See you in the gym!!

See you on the mountain!!

"And then you realize your aren't fit to clean those boots..."

C.S. Lewis has a quote in his book, God in the Dock which gives me courage to fail.

He writes about his annoyance of the some of the music he hears in his church.

"...I dislike very much their hymns, which I considered to be fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate music.  But as I went on I saw the great merit of it.

I came up against different people of quite different outlooks and education, and then gradually my conceit just began peeling off.

I realized that the hymns (which were just sixth-rate music) were, nevertheless being sung with devotion and benefit by an old saint in elastic-side boots in the opposite pew,

and then you realize that you aren't fit to clean those boots."

It is 4:28 in the morning.  In a minute, I leave for Mass and a Mens Meeting afterwords titled "This Man is You".

Am I good enough to play my guitar alone in this setting?

The real answer is "No, I'm not."  But I will try, and I will play it with the best devotion and benefit that I can muster.  I won't be the old saint, but I will try to be the saint I should be....

Checking Six

The pilots in the fighter community have a saying, "Check 6".  It means look behind you.  The '6' refers to the 6:00 o'clock position of the aircraft with 12:00 o'clock position being the nose of the aircraft.

I guess that's what I'm doing with this blog.  As I get closer to 50 by the day, I look back and see what is behind me.

We can't live our lives that way.  We can only glance in the review mirror occasionally.  It helps us with out situational awareness.  We know where we were, we know where we are and we have a plan to get to where we need to go.

This is the last blog looking behind me.  The next 16 days will be my look ahead, where I plan to go and the obstacles I know I will encounter along the way.

Always going home....

"Where are you from?"  This was an honest, friendly question asked of me while on a business trip.  The setting was in Tampa, Florida, in a Starbucks, early in the morning and the crowd was pretty thin.

The question and the sincerity in which it was asked caused me to stop and consider a real answer.  Right away there were images flashing in my head from places I had lived and experiences that had that really left a mark on me.  There was the memories of growing up in a small cow town in Colorado.  There was the times I had lived in Korea, seven years in total, some of them very close to the DMZ, others in the capital city of the country, Seoul.  There were the four years I lived in Germany, the trips in and out of Africa, there was Azerbaijan, where my hotel was just miles away from Iran, Tehran, and Iraq.

"Well," I started to say, "I live in Colorado, but I was in the Army for 24 years. "

"Oh, then you are from everywhere?"  He asked in a  natured way.

"No....no, I'm from Colorado.  All my Grandparents are buried there.  It just took me a while to make it back home."

Where do you call home?

Is it a place?  Is it a state like Colorado, or a city or a neighborhood?  Or is it an ideal?

Please leave a comment.  Let me know what you think.

-Chris

Our thoughts make us

"You cannot send away a bad thought when it appears in your mind, but you can create other thoughts which will weaken or destroy this bad thought.  For example, I may imagine that your friend or neighbor has some drawback, and I may not be able to banish this thought, but when I concentrate on the thought that criticizing another person is bad because I am not perfect, and he has the same God within him as I have within me, then I cannot stop loving this person."  -Leo Tolstoy

Our thoughts make us.  They give us the concepts that we carry throughout our lives.  How we control our thoughts?  How do we choose which thoughts to keep in our minds and to grow into greater thoughts?

These are the thoughts that become the foundation of our lives.
These thoughts are the ones that eventually lead us to the actions and events that define us to the outer world.

How do you grow your thoughts?

How do you grow great thoughts?

How do you keep them?

Please leave a comment, let me know.  Thanks!

-Chris

You never know...

I never liked swimming competitively.  The mornings came early, the water in the outside pool was cold and there was usually someone faster...

Mom and Dad insisted that I swim anyway.  So I did….for years. 

Then one day in May of 1992, I found myself on the beach in Korea.  There were two young men drowning in the surf that contained the debris and waves of a recent typhoon.  At that moment, I vowed that I would not go to bed that night with the visions of two people drowning.  I was going to something to help them or die trying.

Fortunately my parents had insisted that I swim competitively ...for years.  Fortunately I had maintained my goal of staying in good shape.

 

Things worked out fine for them and for me.  I'm alive today and so are they,

…. but who would have known?

Think different

'Think different' was Apple's motto. 

It is my daughter's mantra to me.  "Come on Dad, think different."

She reminds me that life carries on.  She reminds me that I have much to offer, but that 'much' is not the same thing.  I must continue to create myself a new or get filed in the dustpan of yesterday's stuff.

That doesn't mean I lose my morals, my rules that I live by, no.  It means to continue with the progress of my life as the world continues to progress forward.

Someday the world will outpace me.  Someday I won't be able to keep up with the changes and the ongoing evolution.  That's not today.  It won't be tomorrow either, as long as I can 'Think different'.

Thanks Steve Jobs.  Great idea.  Think different. Tthink forward. Keep going, keep improving, keep evolving.  Think different.

 

Doing the right thing

As I look back on my almost 50 years, I wonder, when was I doing the right thing?

Am I doing the right thing now?

Am I wasting my time?

Well, I can't say for sure, but I know I'm trying hard to do the right thing.

That counts doesn't it?