FUN FIRST!

Daily Encouragement for Better Living

MONTHS

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

OCTOBER, 2008

My dad was a plumber as was his father. When my grandfather was near the end of his life, he was in the hospital with various hoses running in and out of him. My dad walked in, did a thorough examination of the piping and asked my grandfather "Where's the sump pump?" This made my grandfather laugh pretty hard. I was planning to use the same line on my dad if the occasion ever arose but by the time he was to the sump pump stage his mind was beyond recognizing the joke so I never delivered it. Shortly before his last days, he could still communicate the essentials though. He could still ask for the bucket . . . as in "kick the bucket." He wanted someone to bring him the bucket so he could kick it. His sense of humor survived till very near the end. I think this helps with the whole dying process. If you want to have a sense of humor at the end, you better start working on it now. I don't think it's something that will just magically appear when you need it. Better start laughing at yourself now.
I look a lot like my dad. When I walked into his hospital room a few days before he died, the nurse said "You must be his son. You look exactly like him." I laughed and thought "Thanks so much for saying I look exactly like an 87-year old dying man!!" But, it's true. I do. The visitation is tonight and there will be a bunch of people who bear some resemblance to him wandering around. People of different ages and dispositions but at least a passing resemblance that shows a family connection. There will also be a lot of people with no physical resemblance but who have a connection in spirit to him, or me, or my siblings. There will be the usual "I'm sorry for your loss" and "I can't believe how your kids have grown," etc. But what gets said doesn't really matter. It's that spiritual connection. The friendship. The thing that motivates a person to show up even though they know they can't say anything to make it better. The unspoken "I know this hurts and it hurts me that it hurts you and I know that you know that it hurts me that it hurts you and that's why I'm here so you can see that it hurts me that it hurts you and you know that I love you because otherwise I'd get as far away from all this hurting as I could." Friendship is one of the truly great things about being human. But, if you do want to say something to cheer me up at the visitation say to my brother "You must be Mark's older brother." He is older but people usually can't tell and that definitely does not cheer me up!!
"I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith." These words of St. Paul come to mind in considering the death of my father. As we bury his body today, we will see the physical representation of a life being completed. A fight involves many punches being thrown and a race many steps. The end depends on how each punch was thrown or each step taken. Dad's good steps far outnumbered his bad ones and his mortal life came to a victorious end. It was a life lived in Christ. My dad threw himself into anything he took an interest in. Once he took an interest in Christ, he became a Biblical scholar. But, he was still an Irish plumber so his learning was applied in a typically blunt manner. If you wanted a straight answer, he was your guy. Today is the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, a humble man who loved God completely. I'm sure dad would be honored to be buried on his feast. St. Francis is also associated with loving animals which brought to mind something that sums my dad up pretty well. He always made a show of hating cats. One day, my little sister found a stray which was the ugliest cat anyone had ever seen. This cat must have lived its whole life in the streets. My dad, while steadfastly maintaining his disdain for cats, built it a house, up off the ground, so it could safely live next to our house and my sister till the end of its days. My dad may or may not have hated cats but he loved my sister and that was all that really mattered in the end. Thanks dad. See you later. In your blue sweater.
Guess not. One more Cub fan in heaven made no difference. Sorry Pop. Baseball is like life: being the best last week doesn't make you the best right now. Baseball is about pitch-by-pitch execution. So is life. It's what you do with the current moment that counts. I want to take this moment to thank everyone for extending their condolences and prayers for me and my family. It's very uplifting to have so many people offer support in our grief. It definitely makes a difference. Thanks.
"I'm stuffed. My friend made turkey and mashed potatoes and everything last night. It was like Thanksgiving-- without the dysfunctional family." I overheard this statement this morning. It got a good laugh out of me. Got to thinking that it might be a good idea for people who are stressed by having to spend holidays with families that don't get along so well to declare spontaneous holidays they can celebrate pleasantly. What's to prevent you from proclaming tomorrow a real Thanksgiving Day and celebrating it with people of your own choosing, in a place of your own choosing, in a manner of your own choosing? Give it some thought. Even if your family isn't dysfunctional, tossing in a few extra Thanksgiving Days would be fun anyway and its always good to have an excuse to overeat even if there's no football or parades with giant inflatable Snoopys on TV.
Today is the first anniversary of the death of the great racehorse John Henry. He is one of my heroes. He was a small horse, with weak bloodlines, who was bought for $1200 and expected to go nowhere. He waited till he was old to do anything significant (Horse of the Year at age 6 and again at age 9) and then trounced his younger competition all the way up to his last race, which he won by coming from the back of the pack down the stretch, earning nearly $7 million in his career, a record at the time. He was great only because he decided to be. He should have been a failure but he decided to be great. On his death, a jockey who rode against him said "All those guys who rode him [some of the best jockeys of all time] were just passengers." John Henry proves that even if everybody else has written you off, you can still succeed. Opinions don't win horse races.
Many years ago a friend of mine had just started on a new venture. He said he was depressed by how it was going. I said "It's too early to be depressed." He said "It's never too early to be depressed." This is kind of his motto. I have a different view. As long as you're still drawing a breath you can change your circumstances. As long as you can change your circumstances, it's a waste of time and energy to be depressed. Better to spend them on assessing your options and acting on the best ones.
Last year, when the markets were reaching new highs, I joked with my stockbroker friend that we were geniuses. The mutual funds I had invested in had gone up. We are no longer geniuses. The Dow Industrials and the S&P 500 finished this week with losses of 18% and at their lows today both were about 40% off their highs of last year and I suspect my mutual funds have dutifully followed the indexes south. I am untroubled by the reversal because I realized when I bought them that I was relinquishing control over the money to distant fund managers. If I was unwilling to take the time and effort to make my own investment choices (and I was unwilling because it just wasn't that important to me) then I can't really gripe about the results. I had nothing to do with them going up and nothing to do with them coming down. One of life's cruel truths is nobody cares as much about you as you do. They are busy caring about themselves and that's ok. A failure to adjust to this fact can make life a painful journey of disappointment. Ultimately, the only person we have any control over is ourselves. Decide what's important to you and invest yourself in it. If other things go awry, laugh it off or change your priorities.
Someone questioned whether my statement from the other day: "One of life's cruel truths is nobody cares as much about you as you do" is really true. It may not be true and that would be a good thing. The point of my emails generally is motivation. I chose the "nobody cares" langugage for effect. My point was to encourage you to take responsibility for your own success and happiness rather than expecting someone else to provide them for you. It's certainly possible someone cares more about you than you do. It's just risky to think everyone does.
Today we remember the "Discovery of America" by Christopher Columbus. In 1492, his expedition made landfall on October 12th, in the New World. We celebrate today, the 13th, a Monday, because we like to add additional days off to our weekends. At least for government employees and school children. We celebrate what was actually for Columbus a failure. He'd set out to get to India but didn't. He had however gotten somewhere and that somewhere turned out to be a pretty good spot. Remember that the process of seeking will lead you to discover things you weren't looking for as long as you're paying attention. While it's important to focus on your goals, it's also important to notice the possibly greater opportunities that may pop-up along the way.
I was advised that today is "Be Bald and Free Day." I am not making this up. Though, it is the kind of thing I would make up. Any excuse to celebrate. I think from the limited research I did, it's intent is actually more like "Anti-Comb-Over Day." Or "Fess Up You're Bald Day." But, no matter. I will seize this phony holiday and make it my own. Any suggestions for an appropriate way to celebrate the day? I'm thinking sitting in the sun and flashing "Bald is Beautiful" in Morse Code at oncoming traffic by taking a hat on and off.
In one of The Beatles' movies (Hard Day's Night, I think) the guys in the band are kicking a soccer ball around outside when their manager makes them stop to get back to something serious. "We were just havin' a bit of fun" one of them exclaims. This line has always stuck with me. "Havin' a bit of fun" is kind of a vocation for me. It requires discipline. Sometimes you can really feel pressure to be serious. Especially if every one around you is being serious. Peer pressure can be tough. That's when you have to persevere. Don't follow the crowd. I'm not saying there's never a time to be serious. The problem is seriousness is like kudzu. It tends to grow and grow until it takes over everything. A little may be nice but it's hard to have just a little. Be very cautious when employing seriousness. I'm not kidding. This is serious.
I was at the gym and one of the big screen TVs had some guy talking. The words "Politcal Comment" appeared in the bottom of the screen. The TV had captions. I violated my personal rule about never watching anything related to politics on TV. This guy reminded me why I established this rule. His whole schtick was a personal attack on a candidate. I couldn't hear his voice but his smug expression and what I was reading turned my stomach. It is amazing to me that anyone would enjoy watching this sort of thing and that anyone would actually sponsor a show where being obnoxious is passed off as commentary. Since when is cruelty a virtue to be rewarded?
"Hurrying never works." I say this to myself sometimes. Usually, when I'm hurrying and it's not working. It took me awhile to figure this out. I used to get mad when I was rushing to do something and it went awry. Breaking a shoelace in haste to tie them. Forgetting my briefcase dashing to a meeting. Now, I just say "hurrying never works" and laugh at myself for doing it yet again. These instances are rarer now. Either I've mostly learned the lesson (though not perfectly) or I just don't have anything important enough to hurry to.
The World Series is underway and off to a good start. Two excellent games have been played and the series is tied 1-1. So far I've managed to avoid the dreaded phone call. Sometime in the middle of a World Series game I usually get a call from someone who is oblivious to the fact that the World Series is on. A baseball pagan. Someone who is unaware of the existence of baseball and its high holy days. I feel sad for them. They must lead such empty lives. Those of us in the know experience a richness in our lives that the poor unknowing have not found. We must show them the way. Start by directing them to the very roots of baseball. We know from Genesis Chapter 1, verse 1, that baseball is the first sport referenced in the Bible. In case you missed it, here is the text: "In the big inning, God created the heavens and the earth." Some translations may not have it exactly like that. I'm using the St. Roberto Clemente version.
In the wee hours of the morning, the Phillies won game 3 of the World Series. With the bases loaded and nobody out, the Phillies batter mis-hit the ball so badly that it slowly hopped toward third base. So slowly that the runner on third base easily crossed home plate with the winning run. The third baseman had no chance to field the ball and make a decent throw to the catcher to get the runner out. Normally, successful hitting means hitting the ball hard. But, in this situation, it didn't take a good hit to succeed. Why? Because preceding events (getting the bases loaded with no outs) set the batter up to succeed with a much lower level of performance than would otherwise be necessary. When you lay the groundwork for success, you don't need a home run to win.
Cosima Wagner awoke on her birthday, Christmas Day 1870, to the beautiful sound of a chamber orchestra playing a piece written especially for her by her husband Richard. He had smuggled the orchestra into the stairwell outside her bedroom to perform "Siegfried's Idyll". Siegfried was their then infant son. The music, an expression of the deep affection Richard had for Cosima and Siegfried, was the richest gift he could give her. We can't all whip up an orchestral piece for our loved ones but we can take the time to figure out a genuine expression of love. This requires: 1) thought and 2) caring enough to think. If you start with 2), 1) will become easier. You might be surprised how many different expresions of love you can come up with.
"I love the cold and winter." A young woman, who otherwise always seems quite intelligent and sane, said this to me this morning. I envy her. While I can view most anything positively (to the point of being sickening to some I'm sure), I'm still working on the positive aspects of being cold. This year I'm going to succeed. No whining. I'll find things about winter to be grateful for and that will lead to a positive attitude. For example: In the winter, your body will be well-preserved so the medical examiner will have no trouble determining hypothermia as the cause of death. Hmm. I'm going to have to do better than that!
When I was in high school I had the privilege of playing guitar in a band for a concert by the great jazz trumpet player, Clark Terry. I got the music in advance and worked at getting just the right nifty little jazz chords for each piece. I was ready to rock . . . or jazz. We had a rehearsal the day of the conference. We went into the first number and I played with gusto and, I thought, quite well. When we finished, Terry spoke: "Turn down the volume on the guitar. It should have a nice percussive effect." Alas, no one was paying to come listen to me. My role was just to provide a little background rhythm. Being relieved of the obligation of making any kind of useful musical sound had its advantages though. I could listen to Terry play without concern for how well I was doing. This was a good thing because he was fabulous. If I'd been fixated on myself, I would have missed his greatness. You can miss a lot when you're focused on yourself.
Today is the 2nd anniversary of FunFirst!-The E-Mail. I decided to re-run the inaugural email for historic purposes and because I'm lazy. Here it is: Halloween: Today we pretend to be afraid of small children in scary costumes. Our real fears are no different. We've gotten stuck dwelling on the illusion they present. Face what you fear and say: "This is not really Freddy Krueger. This is a small child dressed up like Freddy Krueger. This child does not scare me."