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MAY, 2010

•  It's Derby Day!  The 136th running of the Kentucky Derby.  Horses thundering down the homestretch at the Derby is the most exhilarating experience in sport.  The beauty of the animals in full gallop and the sound of the hooves devouring the track as they pass is an unmatched experience.  And, you never know who is going to win the Derby. The horse racing world is constantly providing evidence that what most people think about your chances of succeeding doesn't mean anything.  Last year's winner, Mine That Bird, was a 50-1 longshot.  He wasn't supposed to come close to winning the race. But, horses don't read the odds.  They don't decide they've lost before they start.  Only humans make that mistake.  Go out and run your race today like you expect to win.  Ignore what anybody else thinks about your chances.  Give it all you've got.  Find your opening and blast through it.  You can learn a lot from racehorses.  They do what they were made to do and love every moment of it and don't care what you think about them at all.   
•  Golf is hard.  The driving range is easy.  At the driving range, you don't have to play your bad shots.  Life is not the driving range.  You have to walk into the woods, find your ball, and figure out how you're going to thread the shot between the trees to get back to the fairway.  This can be a mental challenge because the reason you're in there in the first place is because you just hit a lousy shot.  Now you have to hit a good shot and recent history is against you.  You can't be thinking about what got you there.  Relax.  Break the process down into little steps.  Keep your eye on the ball and give it a whack.
•  "Everybody is a genius.  But, if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." (Albert Einstein)  The trick is finding your genius.  It's a challenge because you probably spent your formative years having lots of people judge you against their own idea of genius.  Since most of us spent our childhood in school, we probably received the message that doing well in the academic subjects meant we were smart and not doing well in them meant we were stupid or, at least, "not applying" ourselves.  If you could design and build a go-kart at age 8, but didn't remember your multiplication tables, you might have been encouraged to buckle-down on studying those ever important tables and to stop wasting valuable study time on unimportant distractions like building motorized vehicles.  The good news is-- it's never too late.  Chances are your genius lies in your childhood pursuits and dreams.  If you set aside some time each day for a week to remember your childhood fascinations, you'll probably hit on the thing you were made to do.  If you don't feel like a genius, you really need to take the time to discover where your genius lies.  The rest of us need you to be a genius.
•  Life is like baseball.  Sometimes you foul a ball off your foot.  This usually hurts a lot.  But, in the baseball realm, it's not that bad because you're not "out".  It's just a dead ball and maybe a strike.  As long as you can still stand, you get to take another swing.  You still have the chance to succeed.  Try to see your setbacks as fouls not outs.  They may cause you some intense pain but at least you're still alive with the prospect of success just a pitch away.
•  What's more important to know your strengths or your weaknesses?  If you are like the majority of people on the planet you said "weaknesses."  According to a study quoted by Marcus Buckingham in Now Discover Your Strengths, 59% of Americans say "weaknesses" and the percentage is higher in every other country surveyed.  Buckingham says this is the wrong answer.  He is a genius [because he agrees with me].  In fact, discovering your strengths and developing them is the path to successful living.  Improving a weakness might do some damage control, according to Buckingham, but in order to flourish, it's your strengths you need to follow.  What are you naturally good at and feel energized by doing?  This is the place to start to transform your life.   
•  Did some sprints on the beach this morning. [They were sprints by my standards.  Usain Bolt would probably call them short walks.]  Its pretty hard running in sand.  But its nice to be able to look at the water.  It takes the edge off the pain of running.  If need to do something unpleasant, it's good to find a pleasant place to do it if you can.  Any positives you can add to a negative experience makes the whole thing a lot easier to take.
•  Life is particularly exciting for us these days.  My son, Nick, graduated from Ave Maria University on Saturday and my son, Tom, premiered his movie, Beach House Getaway, on Sunday.  I had intended to keep writing these emails each day but I had technical problems connecting to the Fun First Living website over the weekend and now I'm too busy goofing off.  I'll resume writing someday soon.  Just wanted to let you know what was going on.  Thanks for being a reader.  I appreciate it. 
•  One club golf.  I read about this once.  A golf tournament where you can only use one club.  The 7-iron is the preferred choice-- enough angle to pitch but flat enough to putt.  Since I never figured out how to use all the clubs in the bag anyway, one club golf has a lot of appeal to me. [It also might be good for temper control.  If you only have one club, you can't wrap it around a tree or throw it in the water ["Well, Mr. 3-iron, you hit the ball into the water so you can go in after it!") or you'll have to quit . . . hmm . . . another advantage of one club golf.]  I'm sure it was invented by people like me who were frustrated by the standard version.  This is a good approach.  If something's got you frustrated, step back. Apply a little creativity.  A small change in your method might make it a lot more fun.
•  I spent a lot of time in wonder over the last couple weeks.  At the beauty of the earth, as I drove through the Kentucky and Tennessee hills, or stood on  Florida beaches with the waters of the Gulf of Mexico or Atlantic Ocean  lapping over my feet.  At human genius, as I listened to great musical works beautifully performed, and good books read and reproduced on CDs I could carry with me and listen to in my car.  At the talents and achievements of my children, which were the reason for the trip in the first place.  I could go on and on.  There are innumerable people, places, and things around us every day that we can wonder at.  We just don't usually bother to take the time to notice them.  This is a big mistake.  Life takes on a much richer meaning for us when we take the time to marvel.  
•  In my recent travels, I visited the Ave Maria Grotto at a Benedictine monastery in Cullman, Alabama.  One of the monks who had lived there built over 100 replicas of buildings and religious shrines from around the world out of concrete and scrap.  They are quite amazing.  He didn't have a lot to work with but he had passion and perseverence.  With these, his lack of materials became irrelevant.  Denis Waitley  says "If the why is big enough, the how is usually not a problem."  If you've got a passion for something, the means to achieve it will eventually become apparent.
•  "Where's your sun tan?," a friend inquired. "This is it," I replied, pointing at my cue ball white head.  It's true, despite two weeks in Florida, I am still pale.  Generally, I'm the color of a glass of milk.  After two weeks in the sun, I'm the color of a glass of milk with a drop of coffee in it.  Still very, very white.  People often assume I never go in the sun.  I do.  It's just that the sun never goes into me.  At least not in any visible way.  What someone looks like may lead you to false conclusions about how they act. 
•  How brave are you?  Brave enough to ask your spouse, children, or close friends this question?  "What would it take for you to feel completely loved by me?"  Brave enough to act on the answer?
•  Today is the party celebrating my son Nick's graduation from college.  Somewhere along the way, my little boy turned into an adult.  And, a fine adult he is.  At his graduation, I had numerous people seek me out to tell me that he had made a big positive difference in their lives and that he had done a lot of good for the university as well.  Obviously, this is a great thing to hear when you're a parent.  He graduated summa cum laude (which I learned does not have anything to do with those large Japanese wrestlers) and received the Philosophy Department Award (which I understand requires more than having a firm command of the lyrics and melody of Monty Pythton's Philosophers' Drinking Song.)  He's planning to join the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal and to be a missionary and a priest.  He is an amazing human being and I am deeply honored God gave him to me to raise. 
•  The Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz was full of bluster when Dorothy first encountered him but the bluster vanished, revealing its underlying fear, pretty quickly.  The Apostles lost their bluster pretty quickly, as well, upon Jesus's arrest.  What they thought was going to happen didn't happen.  Instead, something bad happened.  Jesus was put to death.  Even after He rose from the dead and appeared to them, they were in kind of a daze.  Happy but confused.  When He ascended, leaving them again, they were back to being afraid, as well, as confused.  In other words, they were ready.  Having had their expectations defeated, fearing for their lives, and not knowing what the next day was going to bring, they were ready for God to move.  At that point, in that room, the Holy Spirit came to them and the Cowardly Lion disappeared.  They were no longer afraid or confused.  They left that room and changed the world.  Today, Christians commemorate the events of that day, Pentecost.  The big question is whether we leave our commemorative services today with the same power of the Holy Spirit and sense of purpose the disciples left that room with.  Will we allow the Holy Spirit to bring change to the world through us?  Or, will we say "No thanks.  I think I'll stay in this room.  It's too scary out there."      
•  "Something in your car is exploding," Tom advised me as he scrambled out of the passenger seat.  I looked in and saw stuff oozing out of the glovebox and heard a muffled hissing sound.  I opened it and saw that the sunscreen spray can had gotten wedged in such a way that it was spraying its contents all over the inside of the glovebox.  This was unfortunate as it was a sunny day in Florida and I was just about to open the sunroof, roll down the windows, and leave the glove box open so it could get a tan. Now, the poor thing was coated in tan-killing SPF 50 sunscreen.  Ok, I made that last part up.  Now, I have to make up a moral to this story to justify having told it.  Here it is.  When I went to clean up the mess later, there was no mess.  The sunscreen had evaporated by itself.  Often, problems bring their solutions with them if you just give them a little time to play out.  
•  "You can't get more time but you can have more energy." (Matthew Kelly)   A positive attitude brings energy.  This makes each moment, whether at leisure or at work, more valuable to us.  It makes each moment seem a gift while a negative attitude is draining and makes each moment a sentence to be served.  The choice, gift or sentence, is up to you.  You are free.  Live.  Don't just serve time.
•  Love is having an all-consuming desire for the good of another and acting in a way that helps bring about that good.  Often this will be accompanied by a pleasant joyous feeling.  Sometimes it will feel like having your fingernails extracted.  That's why the marriage vows say "for better or for worse."  Love (whether marital, parental, or among friends) proves itself in the "for worse" part.      
•  Every morning I drive by a golf course on the way to the office and thank God I'm going to work and not playing golf.  Golf is frustrating.  Work is not.  I guess golfers enjoy the frustration.  To them, it's not frustration.  It's a challenge.  Working to hit more good shots than bad.  Taking pleasure in a well-played hole despite having played the previous one badly.  Recovering from a bad shot with a good one.  Realizing no matter how bad you were today you can be better tomorrow.  These are the kind of concepts I believe in and live by.  Look to the good not the bad.  Concentrate on your strengths.  Don't let the past spoil the present.  All these things make for a happier and more successful life.  I've just never been able to carry them over to the golf course.  Pretty strange.
•  "I just want to get away,actually."  Her eyes filled with tears as she spoke.  I'd been asking her (an 18-year old) about her upcoming entry into the military.  I hadn't asked her why she joined, I'd only asked about where she was going for basic training and about her previously expressed desire to be a PT.  She offered the underlying reason completely unsolicited.  Sometimes getting away is the best solution.  New people in a new place allows for a fresh start unencumbered by what people think they know about you.  It really does offer an excellent chance to remake yourself.  Of course, you always take yourself wherever you go, so there are some things a change of scenery won't improve.  It's important to know what those things are and to have a commitment to changing them before you take off to a new locale.  Otherwise, it may end up looking suspiciously like the current one.  
•  My son, Tom, screened his movie, Beach House Getaway, last night to an appreciative audience.  It premiered a couple weeks ago in Florida to a tremendous response as well.  Despite the title, it is NOT an infomercial for lovely Florida real estate.  The "getaway" is more of the "running for your life" kind of getting away.  Tom wrote, directed, and edited the film and it's pretty scary.  The first time I saw it I honestly forgot I was watching my own kid's movie.  I got that caught up in the story.  I'm very proud of him.  He's quite gifted and works very hard at his craft.  It's a blessing to see him succeeding at something he's so passionate about.  My only gripe is that he cast a bald guy as the villain.  I mean, come on, we all know bald guys make better romantic heroes!
•  "I'm a superhero and I'm going to save people." "You look like Red Riding Hood." "I'm Red Riding Hood and I'm going to save people." "Red Riding Hood never saved anyone." This was the conversation between two little girls running around (one was wearing a red scarf like a cape) near where I was eating lunch.  Red didn't have an answer to that.  She should have just said, "That's about to change. Don't put Red Riding Hood in a box."  Don't let your playmates define your abilities or flatten your dreams.
•  Nobody landing on the beach at Normandy, or scrambling from his chopper in the Central Highlands, or entering an Afghan cave was thinking about being remembered on Memorial Day.  They were focused on their mission and getting their comrades and themselves back alive.  Many did not make it back.  Today is a hoilday we wish we didn't have.  Let's pray for the day no one knows anyone to remember on Memorial Day.