Who will you acknowledge right now?

It turned out that my father died at the end of February. To me, he was a great man, a role model, and a regular source of inspiration. I'm sorry that he is gone and that more people didn't get the gift it was to have known him. Part of the "silver lining" from the events leading up to and following his passing was noticing and taking some opportunities to acknowledge him and others. So many people, from family and friends to those "just doing their jobs", were generous, supportive, and committed to making a difference in his life and/or mine.

In too many cases though, I caught myself noticing something to acknowledge someone for but letting it remain just a "conversation" in my head. What often stopped me from actually acknowledging them was:

A) waiting for the "best" opportunity instead of taking advantage of the good enough opportunity right in front of me,

B) not making a promise to myself or, better, to others, to do it at some definite time later, or

C) wondering whether I might make someone uncomfortable by "making a big deal" about something or picking the wrong format or venue (public vs private, speaking to them vs writing to them, etc), or leaving them with the idea that I want something from them in return (including an acknowledgment of me from them).

I've also noticed (by way of the subtle technique of friends telling me, point blank) that I've been reluctant to acknowledge myself and accept acknowledgment from others without looking for and stating some offsetting negative element. I've very often focused on where I fell short of my goal and I've taken my achievements for granted, not leaving myself very empowered. An acknowledgment from someone, like "Wow!, You did a great job!" would too often get a response from me along the lines of "it could have been better" or "better late than never" or "if you knew how long it took me you wouldn't be so impressed". I see now that it is just a matter of generosity on my part to accept the value of my contribution to them from THEIR point of view and that doing so is not inconsistent with any commitment I may have to excel.

So, since I know I'm not unique in any of this, I'm letting you in on my relatively new "secret" plan "B" for acknowledging others and myself, namely:

1) I won't hold out for that "best" opportunity to acknowledge someone, since it may not ever materialize; my new best time is NOW!

2) When I'm not able to communicate with the person right then, like during space shuttle re-entry or certain episodes of Seinfeld or South Park, I won't miss the opportunity to promise myself to acknowledge them at the very next opportunity (like by actually scheduling it) and I'll start by acknowledging them to anyone else, right then, right there.

3) On the format/venue issue, I'll go with "when in doubt, write it out". After all, there is that whole "greeting card" industry thing supporting that approach, so I just won't be stopped by that verbal thing. If I'm nervous about it for any reason, I'll just take on being courageous.

4) I'll include myself in my list of people to acknowledge and my new response when someone acknowledges me will be "Thank you!".

So, just because I can (and to show off), here's me being in action with the plan "B" that works for me, from an item just off the top of my head:

Who: my sister
When: right now
Where: right here
What: My sister has been the great communicator of the family. Mom & I talked the most but, often, we were just reporting things in front of other people, telling our stories and recounting conversations with third parties, such that we didn't know much more about the people who were with us when we finished than when we started. Jan has been the one we went to when we needed to "get through" to someone and she always seems to know what is really going on. She's been the hub at the center of the wheel. There have been many times that who she was to each of us in the family made the difference in us resolving a problem, keeping things in an appropriate "big picture" context, or just being in communication effectively. I'm very grateful for the glue she has provided in keeping us connected as a family. Thanks, Jan, for you being you!

So who's next? I can hear you screaming "Pick Me! Pick Me!", so since YOU are reading this, yes, I invite YOU to be next. It's a bit of a game we are playing here so I'll try to come up with at least 10 rules to add to the fun.

Processing ...
Processing ...
Done.

The Rules:

1) Just click on "Comments (Add/View)" and, acknowledge one or more people, just because you can.

2) You get bonus points if you are willing to acknowledge yourself for something, especially something that no one has acknowledged you for before (or even knows to acknowledge you for).

3) You can name names or leave them out. They'll know who you are talking about--especially if it is you acknowledging yourself, I hope.

4) After you have posted an acknowledgment here, you get bonus points when you invite the person to read your acknowledgment here. (NOTE: This is really a trick so that they'll be invited to acknowledge someone themselves. I'd like to acknowledge myself for being clever.)

5) You get DOUBLE EXTRA BONUS POINTS for inviting others to post an acknowledgment just because they can. (NOTE: This will open up the game to people that DO NOT appreciate being tricked into doing something they find satisfying by people trying to score bonus points under Rule #4.)

6) If you are already an acknowledgment virtuoso, in addition to acknowledging someone, feel free to share a great story about having acknowledged someone that will inspire others to acknowledge others themselves.

7) It doesn't have to be the grand blockbuster of all time acknowledgment. Letting the paper boy know that you appreciate his skill and diligence about not knocking over your flower pot on the front porch is just the kind of thing to not "step over" on the way to something else. On the other hand, here are two pools of people you might want to consider:

a) people who have and/or are making a major difference in your life
b) anyone who inspires you with their commitment and achievement in the face of tough circumstances

8) If you are "just" making a public promise to acknowledge someone at another time or place, let us know what you will be acknowledging them for and we'll pretend it doesn't count and you didn't get anything out of writing it down.

9) It's just a game, so if you don't like the rules, make up your own rules or, otherwise, say whatever you want to say, especially sharing what works for you!

10) TRIPLE QUADRUPLE EXTRA BONUS POINTS if you'd like to join my team in promoting other methods/opportunities/venues for people to acknowledge each other. What would life be like if we regularly looked for the greatness in others and in ourselves and acknowledged each other for it? Let's start an avalanche!!!

Reflecting Upon The Important Things

Amid the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, remember to pause and reflect upon the important things in life. If you don't have your own short list, feel free to use this one:

1) how to achieve peace on earth and practice goodwill towards men, and
2) whether we are using our modern conveniences to best advantage.

If your initial response to that short list was "how quickly can we get past that whole 'peace on earth, goodwill ...' thing", you are especially in the right place! Likewise, if you are becoming increasingly frustrated with an apparent shortening of attention spans or find yourself increasingly impatient with any apparent shortcoming of our modern conveniences, see if you can relate to this dialogue. I wrote it a number of years ago in response to a difference in expectations between me and my best friend about the purposes of voice mail. I claimed to be recalling an episode of the "Kung Fu" TV series on the subject.

(If you aren't familiar with that show, you'll be at a small disadvantage, so here's the context: there were regular flashback sequences to a time when the main character was a boy studying with a master Shaolin priest who was blind and referred to his pupil as "Grasshopper".)

.... So here's what I remember:

Master:
Snatch the pebble from my hand, Grasshopper. (Grasshopper tries and fails). Ah, you still cannot. Do not be too discouraged; you are making good progress and it will happen soon enough. Be mindful of the fact that you have mastered the ability to detect that you have voice mail messages and to quickly delete them, which leaves your mailbox pure, clean, and empty.

Grasshopper:
Yes, master. I can stop that damn light from blinking in a heartbeat. You're saying there is more?

Master:
Yes. With training, you will learn to become one with the message, to live the message, to "get" the message. Do not be overwhelmed, Grasshopper. Know that you already have the necessary technical skills which, when applied with discipline and in balanced proportions will allow you to advance to the next level. The first step on this path is to acquire the motivation to listen to the whole message.

Grasshopper:
The whole message, master? You've got to be kidding. Most of the people that leave messages for me are insufferable idiots. And even the one's that aren't can go on FOREVER--20 or 30 seconds sometimes! Really! You should hear some of this crap. In just one or two words I can tell who it is and I just call them back later; it's better for everyone.

Master:
Is it, Grasshopper? Have patience. Listening to the whole message will allow you to analyze its content and, perhaps, divine the intent of the speaker or capture the nuance. A message containing a silly song or an outburst of choice expletives, if not accepted as delivered, may be lost forever. A message might have time sensitive content such that calling back entirely defeats the point of the call. Suppose you get a message from ...

Grasshopper:
Blah, blah, blah, Master. Could you be, like, MORE tedious. I'm sooooo NOT interested in listening to you drone on and on. Just give me my homework and then you can go back to staring at the sun, freak.

Master:
As you wish, Grasshopper. Here are some exercises that may help you gain patience with voice mail messages:

1. Context and Nuance

Try to discern the difference between the following messages that are identical up until the point that you are likely to hit the delete button:

A) Hi. (you hit delete) Call me when you get a chance.
B) Hi. (you hit delete) Don't ever call me again -- BITCH!!!

2. Time critical situations

Which of the following circumstances do NOT fit your nearly universal "just call them back sometime" preemptive deleting rule:

A) dire emergency calls
B) "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" life-line calls
C) deathbed confession calls
D) attempt to abort a suicide calls
E) video rental selection request calls from your boyfriend

3. Combine message listening time with a physical workout

Imagine that each word you hear is an attacking Ninja warrior emerging from the phone. Using your finely honed slow-motion martial arts moves, defeat each word in turn. Besides the workout and the bonus of multiplying your opportunities for stress-reducing destructive bliss, you will be providing entertainment to all those who can see you but haven't got a clue what you are doing.

.
.
.

Anyway, I think it went something like that.

What am I looking for anyway?

A little background. I had a general life melt-down about 12 years ago, with a central focus on my apparent ineptitude in some areas of relationships with women, principally my wife at the time. True, things getting extreme was "aided" by a misplaced confidence in modern medicine and heavy doses of the latest "wonder drug" but having an attitude that I used to think was optimism (but now seems more like just wishful thinking) contributed heavily. In any case, it was about five years before I entertained the thought of risking the emotional pain of things not working out in another relationship and, worse, the potential for being a source of emotional pain for others, regardless of my good intentions.
Being in hotels, on business trips, rarely brought the expected distraction of being excited about being in a new and different setting; instead, it mostly left me focusing on how alone I was and what I was looking for in the next relationship. Fortunately for me, at one point a few years ago, I was staying in a rather upscale hotel and it led me to an insight about whether I was limiting my options by expecting to find everything I was looking for in a relationship in an actual human being. Opening the closet door, I reached for the valet service laundry bag and started a new relationship just like that. It was a very attractive bag, slick white (actually quite a bit too pale for my usual taste), hanging upside down and even appearing as if wearing inversion boots--quite edgy. It just hung there not seeming self-conscious at all about what it was doing. I took it out and draped it over the back of a chair. It didn't say anything but, disappointed as I was with that since I'm a very verbal person, I just went with the flow and figured I could do all the talking (it is a laundry bag, after all).
I noticed that it was communicating by way of an attached checklist that was fluttering in the air conditioner breeze. Perfect! It's telling me what it wants or, at least, what my options are, in plain language, in writing, and with me being able to keep a copy for later, apparently so we could compare notes if there was a disagreement/misunderstanding, so neither of us would be reduced to having to remember and have that be a big deal and a source of contention. It had a tattoo--the hotel logo--but I found myself being less judgmental about that compared to my attitude towards tattoos in isolation from what they are attached to. We ended up spending some time together, mostly just going about our business, although sometimes watching television together, with it just staying there draped over the chair, but finally I noticed that, just like that, I was starting to fall for this bag! Ultimately my bubble burst when I noticed that there were PRICES next to that checklist!  I immediately felt queasy--I was getting involved with a WORKING bag. Later, it occurred to me that, what the hell, I do things for money too; I guess we all just do the best we can with what we've got. I did bring the bag home with me but I knew this relationship was over. That's where Nancy came in.
As always, I keep my best friend, Nancy, up to date on my love life, or lack thereof. I talked to her about the prostitute bag and how it had opened my eyes to new possibilities. She suggested that I should still consider relationships with women to supplement any relationship I might have with a plastic bag but was happy for me nonetheless. Unbelievably (okay, not really because she comes up with this kind of stuff all the time), a few days later a package arrives in the mail from her. She'd found and sent me a very attractive cloth bag, much more my speed in overall appearance and demeanor, and with NO price list attached! It doesn't talk either but what an amazing bag! This could work out. Here are the captioned photos:




It's a magic bag! When I got
home, I found it had arranged
itself like a chef's hat on the
TV. We had a good laugh over it.




We communicated more and I've
learned that "it" is a
female and she has excellent
keyboarding skills as well as IT savvy.




"Baggy" is very domestic.
Here she's cooking my dinner.
What a great bag!
 




What's that noise so early in
the morning? It's Baggy
vacuuming! This is really turning
out well.






Baggy does have a troubled side; in
fact we share the fork biting
phobia. Here, I found her in the
kitchen, just in time.

 


 Baggy can't get enough of
bicycling even when it's just
hanging on the wall. I think
I'm falling in love.

Well???

I've caught myself being disappointed with checking my blog and finding I haven't posted anything new lately, so I know how you must feel. I'd started spending time looking into some of the nifty things you can do with a blog, like adding a visit counter and getting other basic statistics on activity. I just STOPPED doing that in favor of posting this; it actually makes sense to have something worth keeping statistics on before you start keeping them. As I was discussing with my friend Nancy, yesterday, imagine if the founder of Google had been stopped by paying attention to how he spelled the name of his company instead of focusing on the service it would provide. It's actually a mistake; he intended to use the word googol (which means 10 to the 100th power, a LARGE number) but who cares now?

I am still interested in pushing the envelope of what would be interesting in this blog, for me and others, and I'll find a balance between unrealized intentions and actual content. Maybe I'll just post links to other interesting things when I'm not taking the time to create anything myself--sort of like blogger Muzak while you are waiting ;-)

For now, since everyone has fond memories of geography quizzes, study this map and we'll have a quiz later.

Okay, I've just added a picture to my profile but, immediately, that reminds me that one of my pet peeves is people adding "authority" to what someone says based upon sometimes very superficial impressions of them. I'd rather have whatever I have to say evaluated on the merits so, on the outside chance that my profile photo lends credibility, inappropriately, here's a less staged photo, from early one morning or late one night (I can't remember) when I'm in my confused and or skeptical mode (I don't remember which).

And so it begins...

Well, I'm off to my usual start but I declare this first post as a victory over my procrastinating past!

I recently promised some friends that I would set aside all of my considerations about doing a blog and just do it--just because I can. I got my primary inspiration to do this from my sister, who proposed it over a year ago, and my friend Nancy, who started her blog about 8 or 9 months ago. I've challenged myself to be as openly self-expressed as Nancy has been and not devolve into my usual "analysis paralysis" and stifling perfectionism that has kept me on the sidelines for much too long.

To give you an idea of how things typically go for me, here's how it went to get to this point:

1) coming from a commitment to being generous, I decide that blogging is the answer to my getting familiar with sharing whatever I have to share much more publicly;

2) promise my friends that, within 3 months (yes, that's right THREE MONTHS!), I'll have started blogging;

3) create a list of prerequisites to getting started (some reasonable, like researching sites, tools, and features; some not so reasonable, like finishing certain projects and chores first and, of course, staying overly involved with my job, even on my days off);

4) with just a week to go before my self-imposed deadline and being committed to honoring my word, I finally dive into getting things done;

5) last night, having indulged myself with two final distractions (creating yet another email account and setting up my Treo to synch with it), I stub out my blog page and get oh so close to that first post;

6) at 3 AM this morning, can't decide between a "first post title" of "And so it begins..." (the winner) and "Hello world!" (which comes from my computer programming experience);

7) about an hour ago, it's bothering me that I don't recall where the phrase/quote "and so it begins" comes from and I decide that maybe it's lame to start off my "self-expression" project by just repeating something that someone else said, so I'm off Googling for references to it; and

8) I realize that I'm still just stalling AND it's inconsequential AND between the two titles I've thought of "Hello world!" is as bad as it gets AND someone else (Living Photoshop blog) used the exact title to start his blog BUT it looks good--so I'm stealing it!

So here it is! Step one complete. Now I'll be getting on with making your future visits worthwhile.

Hmmm, about that posting a picture issue ...