Month: August 2020

Things We’ve Lost

I got the call early in the morning some years ago.

It was a beautiful February day in Dallas, and I was at work. I stepped outside in the cool, crisp air to answer the phone, watching the sunlight illuminate the trees across the parking lot.

But the call did not match the resplendent mood of the morning. For my grandfather had passed away.

Now, this news was not exactly a surprise. My grandfather had just turned 89 years old, and his health had been deteriorating for weeks. He had also suffered a stroke several years prior — a stroke that took away his wit, his intellect and much of his personality.

With all this in mind, word of my grandfather’s passing seemed to more the tail-end of an epilogue than a stunning break with normalcy.

And so, I acted accordingly. I went back into the office, and walked over to the Human Resource manager’s office. I calmly explained what had happened. Then, I requested bereavement leave, asking to keep the reason for my impending absence secret from the rest of the company.

That bit of bureaucracy handled, I returned to my desk and got back to work.

Several days later, I sat at a gate at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, waiting to board a flight headed halfway across the country.

All around me, there were business professionals returning home from on-site meetings and conferences. This was nothing out of the ordinary for a midweek flight — those generally tend to be business-heavy, and Dallas is a corporate hub. Yet, I felt strangely out of place among these professionals, knowing that I’d abandoned my job responsibilities for the rest of the week.

As I boarded the flight, I reminded myself that I was also on a business trip. Only the business I had to attend to was the matter of saying goodbye.

The next morning, I stood at a hilly gravesite about 90 minutes north of New York City. Dressed in a suit and an overcoat, I delivered my grandfather’s eulogy. Three carefully crafted pages meant to reflect the life of someone who meant so much to me.

After I’d finished, the rest of my family shared assorted tidbits about my grandfather — stories he’d told, and stories he’d lived. After we’d finished, we lowered the urn holding his ashes into the ground and watched as the cemetery workers covered it with dirt.

By then, we could no longer tolerate the 25 degree conditions. We retreated to the car, and headed to a nearby town to eat lunch.

And with the car in motion, I put the process of saying goodbye behind me.

My handling of my grandfather’s passing flew in the face of convention. In a time of grief and mourning, I was calculated and reserved.

There was no need for me to make a big deal out of this event, I thought. Death comes to all of us eventually, and my grandfather had been blessed with a long and fulfilling life. I had no reason to feel sorry for myself, or for others to feel sorry for me. Better to focus on the positives, and then to move on.

This approach led to some uncomfortable moments. My family seemed irked that I was so emotionally detached from the moment at hand. And when my co-workers eventually learned why I’d disappeared for close to a week, they felt awkward addressing it.

Even some friends of mine — friends who had met my grandfather and were fond of him — didn’t learn of his passing for months. And when they did, it was only because they happened to ask. I would never have brought it up on my own.

Looking back, I’m not proud of any of this. It’s clear I didn’t handle my grandfather’s passing all that well.

But I’m not too hard on myself about it. For my blunders are practically par for the course.

Many of us struggle to deal with loss.

Whenever we encounter the end of a life, a relationship or a job, we try not to talk about it. We swallow our emotions and move on.

It’s unclear where this tradition of silence came from. Perhaps our nation’s rugged frontier roots spawned it. Or our omnipresent machismo.

Regardless, we handle loss like a hot potato. It’s the object we try not to touch. It’s the elephant in the room that is never addressed.

And now, in the wake of a pandemic that’s upended everything, we’re returning to these well-worn paths of avoidance.

Life looks markedly different than it did mere months ago. That much should be clear. The threat of a lethal virus has forced us to change the way we work, socialize and care for ourselves. Many traditions we’ve long taken for granted have gone on hiatus.

Yet, we’ve done our best not to dwell on any of this. After all, we’re still in survival mode. Best to put our blinders on and consider what lies ahead. At least that’s how the prevailing thinking goes.

In a vacuum, this strategy seems rational. But I’m not sure it’s the right approach for this moment.

No matter how loathe we are to admit it, we have all lost something recently.

Yes, some of us have sustained more significant losses than others. A loved one, maybe. Or a job. But no one has been untouched by the ongoing pandemic — or the ensuing recession.

We’ve all lost something — even if that something was as simple as the ability to go out on the town.

Some of what we’ve lost will return someday. The more trivial things, mostly. But even when they come back, our cavalier attitude won’t accompany them. Once burned, twice shy.

There is precedent here. It’s been decades since the 9/11 attacks, and yet entering an important building still gives us pause. We find the security protocols both reassuring and unnerving.

The events of that one fateful day have left an indelible mark on us. And this tragedy — which has lasted for months — will surely leave its scars as well.

But while old patterns are sure to repeat themselves, we’re far less likely to address them this time around.

For there are no images of burning buildings. No towers of rubble demanding our attention. The trauma is taking place out of sight — in homes, in hospital corridors and in our own minds.

It’s all too easy to do what we so often do when facing a loss. To do what I did after my grandfather passed.

To hide from it all. To stow our emotions away. To race to move on.

But let’s make this time different.

Instead of taking the easy road, let’s take the inconvenient path. The one that forces us to account for the shock we’ve endured. The one that embraces our own vulnerability.

This won’t be pretty, and it won’t be comfortable. But it will pay dividends down the line.

And in such volatile times, that’s a trade that we should readily make.

The things we’ve lost are significant. It’s time to stop hiding from that fact.

On Personal Liberty

It’s easy to speed on the streets of Midland.

The roads are wide and relatively free of traffic. The sky overhead is a cloudless blue that seems to stretch on forever. And the West Texas terrain is dry as a desert and flat as a tabletop.

In such a setting, the speed limit signs seem to be a suggestion. There’s no reason not to zip it across town.

And in my early days living there, that’s exactly what I did.

However, I soon discovered the cost of such expedience. All too often, a traffic light would turn to yellow as I was barreling toward an intersection. I would have to speed through the light before it turned red when this happened; I didn’t have enough space to slam on the brakes in time.

I generally made it through just fine. But one time, the light turned red just as I hit the intersection.

Now, I had learned years earlier that there is usually a buffer zone after a traffic light turns red. There are a few seconds built into the cycle in which the traffic lights in all directions are red. That way, any remaining vehicles can clear the intersection.

So, I wasn’t worried about getting broadsided or t-boned by another vehicle.

But what I was worried about was something I saw right above the light standard. That something was a traffic camera.

I knew that these cameras could single out offenders. They could identify vehicles that entered an intersection a second too late. And they could help the police send traffic tickets to those drivers — even if no officers were on the scene.

I had heard horror stories of this happening in other cities. So, I would always be cautious when I saw traffic cameras while driving in Miami, New York, Boston, Washington or a host of other cities.

Now, here on the plains of West Texas, my nemesis had returned.

Great, I thought. Just what I need.

Over the next few weeks, I patiently waited for my traffic ticket to come in the mail. And I kept a watchful eye out for more traffic cameras. Given my low salary, I couldn’t afford a second ticket.

But the first traffic ticket never came. For it turns out those cameras weren’t to nab red light runners. They were there as a public safety protocol.

Officers might pull the footage if there was a bad accident near the intersection, or if they were trying to locate a stolen car that might have passed through. But they weren’t using it for a traffic ticket scheme.

I should have expected this news. Texas has always been a haven for personal liberties. A place where homeowners are allowed to defend their properties with shotguns, and motorcyclists can ride without helmets.

Liberty lies with the individual. And so does much of the burden of responsibility.

While the rule of law exists in Texas, the extent of its reach is restricted. So, Big Brother would likely not be out to get me for hitting an intersection a hair too late.

I later found out — the hard way — that some cities did maintain red light cameras, when I got a ticket thanks to one in Fort Worth. But in recent years, the Texas Legislature has actually worked to dismantle such systems. That type of surveillance doesn’t jibe with the Texas ethos of personal liberties.

Personal liberties are not limited to Texas. Indeed, they’re a cornerstone of American society, and prevalent in the western European ethos as well.

As westerners, we are accustomed to a certain brand of freedom. To having room to roam, free of prejudice.

I, as much as anyone, know the benefit of personal liberty. It hasn’t just allowed me to skirt a traffic ticket or two. It also allowed me to move to Texas as a young adult so that I could chase my dreams.

If I had grown up in Asia, the Middle East or Africa, there would have been plenty of stigma behind such a move. There is a longstanding expectation of familial collectivism in those societies — an obligation to support one’s relatives over time and remain in close proximity to them. Relocating thousands of miles away to start anew would certainly raise eyebrows.

But not in America. In America, personal liberty reigns supreme. Or at least it did until recently.

The global pandemic has forced our society to retrench. To keep a lethal virus from spreading unchecked, we’ve had to put some short-term burdens in place. State and local governments have closed businesses, banned large gatherings and required people to wear protective masks — all, ostensibly, in the name of public health.

It hasn’t always gone smoothly. The mask issue, in particular, has become a flashpoint. Some have refused to comply with the order, citing personal liberties. Some business owners have done the same in the face of forced closures. And many people have thrown parties that willfully violated bans on large gatherings.

All of this has led to a new definition of personal liberty. In a pandemic era, the phrase refers to selfish petulance. To grown men and women throwing temper tantrums when they’re asked to sacrifice for the common good. To the worst in us, not the best in us.

To be sure, these recent actions show more of what’s wrong with America than what’s right with it. They’re not a good look.

But they represent a narrow view of personal liberty. And we need to see the entire picture.

 

Let’s go back to that moment when I was sure a traffic ticket was headed my way.

I took it a bit slower on the roads of Midland. And I would slam on my brakes every time I saw a yellow light ahead of me.

I was driving in fear. Out of a sense of financial survival, yes. But also out of skepticism toward Big Brother.

And yet, such changes didn’t make me a safer driver. My hard braking ahead of an intersection increased the chances I’d be rear-ended by another vehicle. And all that time I was taking it slow, I was preoccupied with the thought of another traffic camera somewhere, or a potential yellow light a half mile down the road.

Looking back, it’s a minor miracle that I didn’t get into a wreck during that time.

This incident underscores why personal liberty is so important to me. And to our society as a whole.

For without that benefit of the doubt, that implicit trust, problems are inevitable.

Sure, people are more compliant with the rules when there is constant oversight. But the sense of paranoia that accompanies it can prove to be a powerful distraction.

This distraction sets in like a fog. And so, people are less effective at the task at hand. They’re less creative, less adventurous and less capable of handling the myriad dangers of everyday life.

So no, Big Brother is not the solution. We need some semblance of personal liberty in our lives.

Now, such empowerment does come with responsibility. In times of crisis, we should be using our personal liberty for something more sensible making a scene in a grocery store. We should focus that energy on the common good instead.

Yet, even with that caveat, personal liberty is a crucial component of who we are. It doesn’t belong on the chopping block, even when the going gets tough.

So, let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Our health and safety are paramount, both in the moment and for the long haul. But we don’t need to abandon the principle of personal liberty to protect them. We just need better judgment.

Let’s resolve to find it.

The Tao

What do Sun Tzu, Yogi Berra and Ray Dalio have in common?

Not much, it would seem. Each made their mark in a different field.

Sun Tzu was a legendary military general in ancient China. Yogi Berra was a Hall of Fame baseball player. And Ray Dalio is a billionaire hedge fund manager.

Yes, each of these figures achieve massive success and prominence. But so have thousands of others throughout the annals of history.

There is something else connecting these seemingly disparate figures. Namely, that they didn’t only achieve success. They also articulated it.

Sun Tzu’s modus operandi has evolved into The Art of War — a text used by business consultants and military generals alike in the modern day. Berra’s strangely phrased Yogi-isms — such as If you come to a fork in the road, take it — have also appeared in several works of literature. Dalio has outlined his structured approach to life in his bestselling book Principles.

All of these figures were prudent enough to share the guiding protocols behind their success — a system of brief sayings the Chinese have termed the Tao. They understood that if others could channel such wisdom, it would help make the world a better place.

So, they stripped down the barriers they’d formed around their life’s success. They drained the moat and put down the drawbridge.

They unveiled their Tao. And the world is better for it.

 

Don’t give away the farm.

This adage is common knowledge by now.

The rationale for this saying is straightforward. It is easier to copy others than to create our own success from scratch. So, if we’re going to offer others our playbook, we might as well get compensated for our efforts. After all, we’re effectively giving them a shortcut.

There is certainly some precedent for this philosophy with Sun Tzu, Yogi Berra and Ray Dalio. The literature each authored lies behind a financial barrier — namely, the price for a copy of their book.

Now, to be clear, none of them really demand this fee. Sun Tzu and Berra are no longer among the living. And Dalio has already made his life’s fortune in the financial markets. The prices charged to access their texts are mostly in place to cover the costs of their publishers.

Even so, their efforts to provide their Tao have become transactional. The entire process screams of Give us money, and we’ll give you advice.

This is a familiar arrangement for sharing. But it doesn’t have to be.

I am not famous.

I haven’t led an army into battle, led the New York Yankees to a world title, or led an investment fund through a financial recession.

But I have attained success in my life. And much like Sun Tzu, Yogi Berra and Ray Dalio, I see no value in keeping the Tao behind my success to myself.

So, I am sharing the guiding force behind my success here.

These words of wisdom are for you, my dear readers. I neither ask for nor desire anything in return. I only hope it can help you in some small way.

Without further ado, here is my Tao.

  1. Be present. Success starts with showing up every day, in mind, body and spirit. Do whatever you can to stay connected and engaged.
  2. Be informed. Take the time to prepare, to gather relevant information and to understand the nuance of context. It will all pay dividends later.
  3. Be better. Don’t bask in the glory of today’s achievements. Strive for continual improvement.
  4. Embrace sweat. Don’t let anyone outwork you. There is always another level you can take your productivity to.
  5. Earn everything. We are owed few things in life. Resolve to prove your worth, day in and day out.
  6. Remain deliberate. The world moves fast, and emotions can speed up the clock when it comes to critical decisions. Take the time to fully consider the options and implications before making your choice.
  7. Act decisively. Don’t mistake deliberation for inaction. When making your choice, commit fully to it.
  8. Deflect credit. We didn’t attain our successes alone, and tooting our own horn does no one any good. Pay homage to those who got you there.
  9. Accept responsibility. If things don’t go well, accept the blame. While others might have been complicit in the outcome, there was still something you have done better.
  10. Embrace imperfection. Mistakes are what make us human. Treat them as learning opportunities and iterate accordingly.
  11. Listen first. There will always be more wisdom in the collective than in our own mind. Pay attention to what others have to say before sharing your piece.
  12. Espouse empathy. Everyone has angles they’re playing in life. Still, consider the humanity behind those angles before casting judgment.
  13. Welcome vulnerability. Displaying unabashed confidence can be reckless. Embrace our flaws to find your true strength.
  14. Forget popularity. Likeability is fleeting, and beyond your control. Don’t expect everyone to like you, or stress when some refuse to.
  15. Demand respect. A basic modicum of respect should be a given, unless someone has done something egregious enough to void that right. Don’t let others walk all over you.
  16. Stay active. Little good comes from lethargy. Stay in motion to keep the blood flowing.
  17. Seek balance. Spend some time winding up, and some more time winding down. Counteract noise with silence.
  18. Encounter emotion. Our feelings bring us to life. Do what you can to remain connected with them.
  19. Maintain discipline. Good habits can be challenging to hold on to over time. Muster the mental fortitude to stick with them.
  20. Help others. In the long-run, what we accrue means little. But what we share with others can mean everything.

It is my hope that these guiding principles help you in life, regardless of the context you apply them to. And that as you see success — however you come about it — you share your Tao with others as well.

Here’s to finding your best.

Roots and Branches

Where do our origins lie?

It’s a complicated question.

There’s the biblical explanation, with the tales of the Garden of Eden. There’s the scientific explanation, which ties us back to prehistoric Africa. And there’s the literal explanation, which links us with the community where we entered the world.

Each explanation covers one angle of our origins. So, it’s hard to fully dispel any of them.

And yet, none of them truly provide us the satisfaction we desire.

For when we ask this question, we’re looking for a compelling narrative. A story with a cathartic ending.

So, we turn to genealogy kits. To old photographs. To family heirlooms and documents faded by the hands of time.

And we organize it all into a system of roots and branches. Of family trees, tribal allegiances, and cultural identities.

By weaving this yarn, we hope to learn more about our ancestors. But quite often, we’re also seeking to find something within ourselves.

I’m a longtime Texan.

I’ve lived in the Lone Star State for more than a decade, and I’ve felt more at home between the Rio Grande and the Red River than anywhere else.

And yet, I’m not a native Texan. I wasn’t born here, I didn’t grow up here, and I didn’t go to college here.

In fact, prior to moving to Texas, I’d spent my entire life on the eastern seaboard, in a completely different cultural environment.

So, why has Texas felt so familiar to me? Why have I felt so at home here since just about Day 1?

I’ve pondered this question for quite a while. But eventually, the answer became clear: My father.

Now, to be clear, my father’s only connection to Texas is me. He went much of his life without ever setting foot here.

But my father also has ties to the heartland. For he was born in Missouri.

This was as much as matter of circumstance as anything else. When my father was born, my grandfather was attending medical school in the Show-Me State. And my grandparents had no other relatives living west of the Mississippi River at the time. But regardless the context, Missouri is the place where my father spent the earliest months of his life.

My father has no memories of those days. The family moved to Michigan before his second birthday, and then to Pennsylvania before he turned four. My father lived in the Philadelphia area through college, and he’s spent his entire adult life in New York. So, his own narrative — his experiences, memories and perspective — it all has a distinctly Northeastern tilt.

And yet, when I was growing up, my father would occasionally throw out a passing reference to his Missouri origins. He would pronounce it as Miz-OR-uh, just as he claimed the locals do. And occasionally, he’d host our neighbor — a Missouri native — for a barbecue in our backyard. My father and our neighbor would drink beer and talk late into the night about life far from the big city.

I should have recognized how ridiculous this all was — my father waxing poetic about a life he had barely experienced. But I never did.

Instead, I started to view my father’s time in the heartland as part of him. As a story that had been cut off mid-sentence.

And so, when I moved to Texas to work in broadcast television, I viewed it as more than a career decision. It was a chance for me to pick up the narrative my father had started. The narrative of life in the heartland.

Living that narrative was my mission and my purpose. Falling for Texas the way I ultimately did  — that was just gravy.

Yet, even as my life transformed in the best of ways, something was still nagging at me. The  narrative of my father’s origins still felt as open-ended as ever.

Fortunately, it wouldn’t be for long.

On a temperate August afternoon some years ago, I strode up a jet bridge at Lambert International Airport in St. Louis. I was fresh off the plane from Texas, taking my first steps over Missouri soil.

Inside the terminal, my father was waiting for me. His flight from New York had arrived moments earlier. And that meant he could greet me at the gate, instead of baggage claim.

As I looked at my father, a rush of emotions flowed through me.

This was the first time he’d been back in Missouri in 50 years — since that day the family packed up and moved east.

He was a toddler then. Now, he was a middle-aged man with gray in his beard. And here I was, bearing witness to this historic moment.

If my father also felt sentimental about all this, he didn’t say so. In fact, neither of us mentioned much about it the rest of the trip. There was no time for that.

We were slated to visit both St. Louis and Kansas City over the course of that weekend. We had tickets to baseball games in each city, along with plans to visit the Budweiser Brewery, the Gateway Arch and a few other sights. In fact, our schedule was packed so tight that we didn’t even consider taking a dogleg to the town where my father was born.

But even if the reunion tour wasn’t quite as advertised, that first moment still sticks with me. That sensation of arriving in a new place, while somehow feeling as if you’re returning back home.

There was nothing quite like it.

As I look back on all of this, I find myself perplexed.

What drew me to the narrative of my father’s origins? And why haven’t I been able to let that fascination go?

After all, I have no natural affinity for Missouri on its face. I don’t fantasize about Toasted Ravioli. I haven’t read Mark Twain in ages. And the St. Louis Cardinals haven’t stolen my heart — they’ve only broken it.

This dissonance is natural. For I represent the branches in my father’s life story. And those branches are far removed from the roots.

And yet, a connection remains. A connection that solely exists because of who my father is and what he means to me.

It matters that the man who raised me, believed in me from day one and challenged me to be my best took his first steps on Missouri soil. That he uttered his first words there. That he breathed in that fresh prairie air, just as I do all these years later.

His roots might not be my roots. But they’re part of my legacy.

So, forget the biblical or scientific explanations. Throw away logic and labels.

I am my father’s son. The heartland will always be where my origins lie.