Leaning Toward Wisdom

As much as I'd love to be completely transparent, there's just so much that would be improper about it. So I'll give you the broad brush of it.

There hasn't been a physical death, but the carnage is deep and vast. It's personal. It's family. And it's been going on a long, long time. A slide. An erosion. Lots of pain. Lots of suffering. Lots of preoccupation with the loss. But no control because we can't (nor should we) control other people.

I rounded the corner of closing out February 2022, realizing that sorrow and grief have preoccupied me for going on four years. Fact is, I've been grieving for many, many months, but something happened (I don't know what) and one day I decided to draw the proverbial line in the sand. "April is going to be the month I fully devote to my grief, then I'm going to emerge with a new - albeit less whole - normal."

Well, life gets in the way. Even of planned grieving.

Sorrow and grief are odd things. They impact us in unique ways to us. Processing emotions isn't something you can necessarily generalize.

VIA Survey - mentioned in today's show - click here: https://www.viacharacter.org/surveys/takesurvey

My number one character trait is forgiveness. Here's what the folks at VIA say about it.

Wednesday, April 6, 2022. An update sparked by recent random thoughts. Consider this a bonus/special episode 'cause it was completely unplanned...until I watched a YouTube live stream of a governing body meeting where people seemed largely driven by...well, I'm not sure what drove them. Suffice to say, the behavior wasn't exactly exemplary. ;)

Enjoy!

Do you worry about impressing people? How much do you worry about it?

There's a balance, don't you think? A healthy balance seems necessary. Too far in one direction and you're self-absorbed. Too far in the other direction and you're fearful to do anything.

Let's talk about it and think about how we may be able to lean more into wisdom...and further away from our own foolishness.

Thank you for listening.

Monday, March 28, 2022. I don't feel well. At all. But sometimes you just have to talk through some things. So welcome to my efforts to talk through it today.

I didn't plan this as a special episode, but here it is - a show released on Monday. Don't get accustomed to it.

When I began working as a teenager, I quickly realized most of my learning was going to be in reverse. I learned how not to do things by seeing them done poorly. The tyrannical boss taught me what not to do if I wanted to pursue high performance. It would be many years later, mostly by books at first, then by using life as my own laboratory before I'd learn things in a more positive fashion.

This formula works effectively in lots of areas. For instance, you can ask somebody what they want and deal with lots of hesitation as they attempt to figure it out. Or, you ask them what they don't want and instantly get a lengthy answer. Turns out we can more easily identify what we don't want. Or things we hate. Or things we know won't work.

That's why I decided to craft today's show by looking at the negative. By looking at marriage in reverse rather than leaning into a more positive approach. I suspect we'll all be able to flip the script during the episode and figure out how we might be able to improve our marriages - if we're even interested in such things.

This is far from an exhaustive list. Try to add to it. Use your imagination. Or your own real life, if it applies. I hope it doesn't, but the reality is many marriages are in serious trouble. Others are just there, like a tepid pool of water.

You can read a ton of information about marriages, including what makes for great marriages. And why marriages fail. I started to link up all the many sites I visited in preparation for this episode, but the list is so extensive...I'd suggest you just Google whatever interests you, then devote however many hours you'd like to the effort. You'll become exhausted before you exhaust your search results.

Permit me to offer you this preface - some of these ways are generic and others are more specific. The goal is to provoke you to elevate your willingness to help your marriage become great. If you're unwilling, then prepare for the worst. Our willingness is trait number 1, required for success in anything, including our marriages.

1. Don't initiate. If your spouse doesn't initiate, just wait until they do. And if they don't, well, that's how life will be.

Here's a major generic way to wreck your marriage. It applies to EVERYTHING.

2. Stop having fun. Stop showing off.

We're prone to stop wooing our spouse. That includes showing off - not just something men do, but women, too. Being comfortable is a great thing. Complacency isn't.

3. Stop kissing each other good morning and good night. 

Just stop it altogether really. Sometimes it happens for a variety of reasons, but I suspect they're all selfish. Truth is, selfishness is the biggest enemy to our marriages. But it happens. Sometimes. Or all the time. We get to choose how often - or how little.

4. Give up. Stop caring. 

Resign yourself that this is how it's gonna be and there's little to nothing you can do about it. Give up.

Bonus ones mentioned:

5. Judge your spouse on your default behavior, not theirs. 

6. Never apologize or admit you're wrong.

Thanks for listening,

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”   ― Samuel Adams

Tyranny costs everybody, including the tyrant. Let's talk about it.

The video I refer to is around the 20-minute mark in the overall video above.

Here's the link to the playlist I mention: In Thy Paths

Simplicity helps. Let's define "greatness" as success. You can establish that for yourself, and define it however you'd like. For me, it's about being extraordinary, remarkable, and dazzling. And as far as enemies go...well, it'd be nice if there were only one - distractions - but there are many. No sooner do we overcome one, than like a hydra - 8 more pop up, but distractions encompass a ton of them. Complacency encompasses a ton more and I might be able to argue that complacency is a distraction, too.

Everybody wants to change the world, but nobody thinks about changing himself.     - Leo Tolstoy

I'd make a small edit to that.

Everybody wants to change their world - their outcome - but they may not be willing to change themselves. In short, most of us want a different outcome without having to alter anything we do. We'd prefer to keep doing what we're most comfortable doing hoping our outcomes will magically improve. They won't. They don't.

You know me, I'm a phrase guy. A word guy. It's how we convey thoughts and ideas. A major way we communicate.

Being competitive. That's an important phrase that I think is too frequently viewed negatively as though we mean our victory rides on the back of somebody else's defeat. But that's not true when it comes to us being our best - or trying to be. Our success doesn't rob us of any victory.

We have to grow our competitive stamina.

I wish I weren't so distracted, but I am. And I know it shows. Which is why today - like most days - I'm preaching to myself first. And hoping you find some value.

Psalm 37:25 "I have been young, and now am old; Yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, Nor his seed begging bread."

I wrote it down in 2014. I'm not going to do it justice today, but it's what's on my mind. Kinda sorta.

Mostly, I'm gonna scatter-shoot a bit by sharing the kinds of questions I continue to get. Hint: they've not changed much through the past 20 plus years that I've been doing this podcast. I think I'll have to revisit this title and do a much better job later!

P.S. I found the page that does have some affiliate links, etc. It's HERE.

James Frank Dobie was born in Live Oak County, Texas in 1888. He was a writer who focused on folklore. He once wrote...

"There are just three essentials to a good story; humanity, a point, and the storyteller."



Between 2005 and 2015 podcasts were likely to go just 12 episodes before fading. Since then I'm fairly certain the number of episodes before podfading has shrunk. Stick-to-it-ive-ness strikes almost every human endeavor. Including podcasting, which is largely a platform for digital storytelling. Starting is easy. Staying with it isn't.

Why do so many podcasters quit?

Why do so many people quit anything?

Because quitting is easier than sticking around.

Because the focus required to have a point in a story is the focus required to make a go of something. Anything. Like that friend who rambles when telling a story...he hops down every bunny trail all along the way. It exhausts us. It distracts us from whatever point he may be hoping to make.

“Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days.”           ― Zig Ziglar

I regularly catch myself asking people to go back in a conversation. They begin to tell a story when some point of the story reminds them of a detour, which they happily take. Minutes later I say, "What about that first story you started telling? What happened?" To which they'll respond, "Oh, yeah..." and then continue to finish that first story.

We all struggle with focus...some more than others.

Staying on point is one thing. Having a point is something else. But both share the same DNA.

Time management is always popular. Largely ineffective, but popular.

How did you spend the last week?

What did you do with the 168 hours of last week?

It wasn't last week, but it was a couple of weeks ago - Rhonda and I took a trip. A getaway. To our favorite place for such retreats, Hot Springs Village, Arkansas. I love it so much I decided to do a podcast about the place almost a year ago - Hot Springs Village Inside Out.

There's a particular place in Louisiana we enjoy going to just get away, too. And like this favorite place in Arkansas, it's not a place with much excitement or a long list of things to do if you're looking for exciting nightlife or high-level entertainment (whatever that may be). The fact is, Rhonda and I are not attracted to such places.

There's some history in both areas. A few plantations to see in Louisiana. Old southern live oak trees to marvel. Imagination to spark at how difficult life must have been for the slaves of early America. Gangster legacies in Arkansas. Miles of trails. Waterfalls. Big, big trees.

Stroll the grounds of old Louisiana plantations and see how the slaves lived. Well, more accurately try to imagine how they lived. I remarked to my wife on our last trip, "Our very worst day is vastly better than their very best day." It's not hard to be grateful in those moments. Focus was easy as I looked around a place I had visited before - and where I had always had similar thoughts. Thoughts of how hard life once was in early America. Thoughts of how even the plantation owner's family endured a harder life than the average American does today. And slaves? Well, it's unimaginable to me how tough life was.

Getting away from our routine can do this for us. Focus us. Help us concentrate on things that may be more important than the seemingly urgent matters that often consume us.

While on a Louisiana trip I did a podcast via my iPad - something I never do, but it was my only option at the time. It was another podcast I was doing at the time with a co-host. In the episode, which had a thanksgiving theme, we talked briefly about how as we approach a new year,

It's impossible to completely separate some areas of our lives from others. Are you good at compartmentalizing things? You know, not letting one thing or area of your life disrupt another area? It can be hard. I'm decent at it, but I'm far from world-class. Honestly, I worry a little bit about folks who can flip switches and just go about their business - either at home or work - as though everything is fine.

Let me explain. Throughout my life I've encountered quite a few people - some professionally and some personally - who've had some pretty tragic things happen. As a people watcher and observer, I'm often fascinated and puzzled by the person who can suffer tragedy in one area of their life, but in another area act as though everything is fine. It's weird to me. That goes way beyond compartmentalizing something, but let's talk about that - compartmentalizing.

When I compartmentalize something I'm able to not let that thing - something tragic, perhaps - not creep into a place where it doesn't belong. Let me give you two examples that may help you understand. The first example involves personal and work. I had what must have been a gall bladder attack over 10 years ago. It's the only time it's ever happened to me. We were at church and the afternoon service was about to begin. Suddenly, I got a sharp pain at the top of my stomach and began to feel sick. Not throw up sick, but breaking out into a cold sweat kind of sick. I told my wife I was going to go to the rest room and I got up. By the time I got to the back where the restrooms are located, I was feeling terrible. I went into the restroom shed my suit jacket, ripped off my tie and unbuttoned the top 3 buttons of my shirt. I was pouring sweat. No nausea or anything else...just this pain and profuse sweating. She rushed me to the ER. I couldn't keep my legs from pumping. The nurse asked me to describe the pain on a 10 point scale. I told her, "I don't know. A 3 or so." The ER nurse said, "Look at him he's writhing in pain. A three?" I remember thinking, "So this is what writhing is." Man, alive. I was sick as a dog. I wasn't in any kind of shape to answer a quiz, even if it was about how I was feeling.

Fast forward a bit and they've given me enough pain medicine to knock down an elephant (at least that's what they told my wife). I'm very resistant to pain medication. I'm laying there, legs still pumping and my cell phone rang. My wife reports that I instantly answered it in my normal voice and carried on some brief conversation with the person calling, never telling them I was in the ER writhing in pain. See, I told you I know how to compartmentalize! Okay, you want a better example? Let's try a professional example.

I've encountered many people issues. Sometimes leaders can see a single problem and assume there's something systemic going on. It's a pretty common response. I don't suffer that very much. Just because there's a problem with a person in one department doesn't mean there's a problem with everybody in the department. I once experienced a serious honesty breach with a manager. All the evidence pointed to the facts: a) he was guilty of this infraction, b) he was acting alone and c) he'd been doing it for much longer than I'd like to admit. I didn't have a hard time seeing it for what it was - an isolated act of betrayal by one employee. Weeks of quiet investigation didn't lead me to any other conclusions. In time, I handled the problem and terminated the employee.

I know business people who would have easily thought this was a wider spread problem. I didn't because I had no evidence that it went beyond this one employee. That's what I mean by compartmentalizing.

Why is that subject important? Because I'd like you to think about your life, your behavior. I've seen 3 basic types of people:

1) the people who compartmentalize with some magical switch where they ...