Month: November 2022

A Winning Hand

You gotta know when to hold ‘em and know when to fold ‘em.

Kenny Rogers’ The Gambler is famously hokey. It amounts to three and a half minutes of non-advice about how to find a winning hand — both in card games and in life.

The song was well past its peak when I was a teenager. You’d hear it now and then out in public, but not frequently enough.

Truth be told, we could have used a bit more Kenny Rogers back then. For plenty of us were in big trouble.

You see, poker was gaining popularity nationally. And online poker was becoming prevalent. Many of my teenage peers were caught up in the craze, mesmerized by the allure of massive payouts.

Yet, most of these teens had little experience managing money. And when the winning hands dwindled — when the bluffing and bravado went up in smoke — some ended up deep in the hole to entities determined to collect.

It was a real problem. One that threatened to haunt my generation for years to come.

I didn’t get swept up by the online poker craze as a teenager. And I didn’t end up with a mountain of debt.

There were two factors guarding me from such a fate. I was extremely risk averse. And I was bad at poker.

I played the game now and then — mostly at family game nights or gatherings with friends. I knew what a Royal Flush and a Full House were. And I could usually identify a winning hand.

But when I didn’t have that hand, I was toast.

Yes, I was proficient at playing the cards I was dealt. But when it came to reading the table, I was a novice.

I never bluffed. And wouldn’t dare call out others for doing so.

I didn’t win much this way. But I didn’t lose big either.

All this was extremely on brand for my life at the time.

I tried to shy away from false pretense as a teenager. Sure, my fashion sense and musical taste were less than authentic. But when it came to items of substance, I focused on the tasks directly in front of me. This ethos made me a solid student and a reliable friend.

Yet, as I grew older, I began to stray from this path. I started dreaming big, making grand plans, and racking up assumptions.

And just like those amateur teenage poker players, I got burned.

2.0 in 2020.

That was the name of my now-infamous plan to take my life to the next level.

It had already been quite the ride for me in early adulthood. I’d moved to faraway West Texas to work in TV news, only to ultimately leave that industry and move east to Dallas.

I’d landed on my feet and built a stable career in digital marketing. But I feared that I’d plateaued, and I saw few advancement opportunities out there.

Rather than play the cards I was dealt, I yearned to build myself a winning hand.

So, I bet big. I enrolled in business school, while still working full time. And as I neared the finish line of my Masters of Business Administration studies, I set objectives for myself.

Getting a new job was paramount. But not just any job. I needed an “MBA job” in marketing at a major company in the area. And it had to happen not long after graduation, while my degree was still “fresh.”

By my estimations, this metamorphosis needed to be in full swing by the time 2020 rolled around. Hence, the 2.0 in 2020 moniker.

At first, things looked promising. I made it all the way to a final round of interviews with a prominent global brand. I had some other promising prospects as well.

But then, things dried up. The interview requests dwindled, and I got snubbed for an internal promotion.

As my self-imposed deadline of 2020 approached, I felt as if I was holding anything but a winning hand.

Then, a global pandemic arrived.

With the world shutting down, I felt compelled to hang on to what I had. My home, my friends, and my job.

This feeling only intensified when my employer was acquired. The future of my position was shaky, and I prayed that my income would continue to come in.

2.0 in 2020 had gone up in flames spectacularly. I had retreated into my shell in response, waiting in vain for the firestorm to abate.

But I grew bored after a time. And I got bold.

I landed a role on my new employer’s marketing team — finally getting that MBA job I’d yearned for. I joined some local running groups and started medaling in races. I trekked around the country more than I had in years.

Like a phoenix, I’d risen from the ashes. I was making my own luck, and I was thriving.

But a big part of me wondered how much of all this was real. And I feared that I’d become Icarus, flying too close to the sun.

My fears were soon realized.

I got sick on a work trip and then hit a few bumpy patches at work. I got injured, putting an abrupt pause to my running exploits. I faded away from friends and family, losing confidence in myself throughout the ordeal.

I was frustrated. I was dispirited. I was lost.

The ghost of 2.0 in 2020 had burned me once again.

What is a winning hand?

I asked this rhetorically one night, as I stared aimlessly at the living room wall.

Through all the ups and downs, my North Star had remained constant. But it was evident that I had no idea what that star was.

It seemed best to get back to basics. To stop waffling between honest play and the bluff. To stop looking at the cards altogether.

The planning hadn’t led to the payoff. The house got the last laugh every time.

It would be far better for me to take things one day at a time. To look at what’s in right front of me and to react accordingly.

I’ve started taking this approach a bit more. And thus far, I’m happy with the results.

There’s a poignant lesson in here for all of us.

While we might desire to upgrade our hand through bluster and bravado to find success, we might have all we need already. It’s likely been there the whole time. We just hadn’t bothered to look for it before.

Success can be found in stillness. In simplicity. In the six inches in front of our face.

It’s our job — our obligation — to open our eyes to it. Let’s do so.

The Downshift

I hit the homestretch with a head of steam.

I was carving a path through the icy ski slope, out of control, and trying to avoid a wipeout at 20 miles per hour.

Deft skiers would manage this task with ease. But I was a beginner.

So, I took wide turns. I weaved around other skiers. I widened my skis into that pizza shape they teach 4-year-olds to make. Then I widened them more.

Nothing seemed to slow me down enough.

The slope mercifully ended. But now, I was flying through the straightaway like a car with malfunctioning brakes. I crossed the snowy apron like a bowling ball, chugging toward the parking lot.

The laws of physics dictated that I would either run out of velocity or I would crash into a parked car. I prayed for the first option, and I got it — narrowly.

I was alive. I was intact. And no humans, ski equipment, or vehicles were damaged.

But as I made my way back to the apron, two cold truths hit me like an avalanche.

I needed ski lessons, desperately. And momentum is hard to stop.

A few years after my ski fiasco, I once again tangled with the power of momentum.

I was working as a news producer in Midland, Texas. A week before Thanksgiving, the police scanner on my desk buzzed, warning of a “possible train accident” in town.

It turns out that a freight train had collided with a parade float full of Purple Hearts. Men who had courageously served in Iraq and Afghanistan ended up perishing at an event in their honor.

I broke the story on our newscast, and it quickly got picked up nationally. It was a career-making moment, but I was in no mood to celebrate.

For one thing, I was devastated by what had happened. I wished that this tragedy hadn’t hit my home city.

But I was also busy. For the National Transportation Safety Board had converged upon West Texas to investigate the incident. And each day, I would air highlights from the myriad press conferences the NTSB held.

Those press conferences now blur together, but there is one moment I remember clearly. An NTSB representative was discussing whether railroad signals two miles from the accident were working properly on that fateful day. Suddenly, he paused for emphasis.

“This is all important,” he stated. “Because it takes a mile to stop a train.”

It takes a mile to stop a train.

I had never considered that point before. Neither had many viewers of my newscast, who wondered openly why the train engineer couldn’t have just slammed the brakes a bit harder.

But upon reflection, it made perfect sense.

The power of a freight train can be a great asset for the transportation industry. It can help ferry goods across our nation with great speed.

But all that momentum can’t just be halted on a dime. The train needs to downshift first. And it needs plenty of track to gradually slow to a halt.

As it turns out, my career was on a similar trajectory to that train. My big break had broken me, and I now saw no path forward. I sought to switch tracks to a new career — immediately.

This proved impossible.

For my entire resume read TV news, and employers outside of the media were wary of giving me a chance. I would need to fully downshift out of my old vocation before I could pick up a new venture.

It took more than half a year for me to fully make a career transition. And I had to move to a new city and spend several months unemployed along the way.

Momentum is a powerful thing. But sometimes, it can be a crutch.

If you had one word to describe the world as it exists these days, what would you use?

Unpredictable? Unsettling? Divisive?

It’s no secret the past several years have upset the apple cart.

A global pandemic, widening polarization, and economic strife have all shaken the foundations of what we thought we once knew. They’ve forced us to adapt in real time.

Some of these adaptations will likely have staying power. We’ve gone from remote work novices to aficionados in short order, for instance.

Others probably won’t last. Say goodbye to wide-scale remote learning.

I have my thoughts on these specific adaptations, as we all do. But I’m more fascinated with the wider picture.

For there is a narrative behind these changes. There is a not-so-silent expectation of us.

This narrative, this expectation — it demands that we stop on a dime and reverse field. It insists that we throw away everything we’re accustomed to so that we can meet the moment.

Such thinking might seem prudent when staring down an acute emergency, such as a blossoming pandemic. It might seem excessive when the risk is opaque, as is the case with climate change.

But either way, it’s primed for blowback.

For much like a freight train or a novice skier, we are not built for a quick pause. We need to downshift, to lose steam, to exhaust that mile of runway before we can rightfully blaze that new trail.

Expecting anything more of us is unrealistic. And yet, we continue to raise that bar.

Many of us called other people killers when they dared to go out in public early in the pandemic. What was so recently run-of-the-mill behavior was now considered accessory to murder.

And many people who eat meat or shun electric cars have been branded planet destroyers. The endless hurdles of sustainability are ignored in favor of shaming the status quo.

These demands carry a chilling effect, driving a wedge between the judgmental and the judged. They often provoke a nasty response, stoking the flames of polarizing vitriol.

But worse than that, they close doors to opportunities.

For many of those we shame for not being committed to the cause are actually on their way there. They just need that mile of track to downshift before changing course.

Ostracizing these people in such a fragile moment is foolhardy. It causes many of them to abort the mission, and to double down on old habits. For if they’re going to get yelled at either way, it’s better for them to stick with the familiar. At least that’s the common refrain.

Ignoring the physics of momentum does us no good. No good at all.

So, let’s try something new.

Let’s favor grace over judgment. Let’s give others the time to adapt to the realities of an ever-changing world. And let’s give ourselves that gift too.

The downshift requires planning, anticipation, and a mile worth of track. But there is no substitute for this if we want to avoid catastrophe.

And that’s certainly a goal worth striving for.

Pulling the Plug

As I walked to the starting line, I felt tentative.

Pre-race jitters played a part in that, sure. But they didn’t tell the whole story.

My left leg was aching a bit. It had for weeks. And I wasn’t sure it would hold up.

I had taken all the normal precautions. I’d stopped running for a week. I’d gotten x-rays, which had come back negative.

All was supposedly well. But it didn’t exactly seem that way, even after my warmup jog.

Still, when the horn sounded, my legs got moving. Adrenaline took over, and all discomfort faded away. I raced, and I raced hard.

I crossed the finish line with a personal best for the 10K distance, placing me in a Top 15 position. I was elated with the result, and just as thrilled to find that my leg wasn’t aching anymore.

I was fine. Or so it seemed.

A week later, the discomfort returned, and it intensified rapidly. An MRI proved what I’d already feared – I had a significant injury.

I had to take two months off from running. As a result, I pulled out of a marathon I had been training for.

Going all out in that race had proved quite costly.

Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.

Those words are now the legacy of Jim Valvano.

Valvano was a championship-caliber college basketball coach. But few remember him for his accolades on the court.

Instead, they recall an iconic speech he gave at the 1993 ESPY Awards. A speech that included those seven words.

Valvano was battling cancer at the time — a battle that would tragically end weeks later. But during his time at the podium, Valvano made an impassioned plea for cancer research resources. Resources that were shockingly scant at that time.

After noting that these efforts would more likely save his children’s lives than his own, Valvano announced the launch of The V Foundation for Cancer Research. The foundation’s motto would be those seven words: Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.

That speech, and that motto, resonated with many. If this man remained so committed, even on death’s doorstep, how could we even think of quitting?

I found myself influenced by seduced by this same message. In fact, I can count on one hand the times I’ve pulled the plug on something.

This applies to everything – my career, my hobbies, even the shows I stream. When I’m in, I’m all in.

Such a mentality can have its virtues, of course. Stick-to-it-iveness is an American hallmark.

But the downsides can be significant. Wasted time. Misaligned energy. And even the potential for shattered dreams.

It’s far better to add some nuance. To know when to stay in the fight, and when to pull the plug.

You’ll know when it’s time.

Just about every former athlete has shared this wisdom when discussing the best time to hang it up.

Many pro athletes have stuck the landing when it came time to pull the plug. Peyton Manning walked away from football with a Super Bowl victory. Ray Borque lifted the Stanley Cup and hung up his skates. The late, great Kobe Bryant dropped 60 points in his final pro basketball game.

But then there are those who hung on too long. Wayne Gretzky’s unparalleled hockey career ended with three modest seasons where he sported New York Rangers sweater. Michael Jordan unretired from basketball (a second time) to slog through two mediocre years with the Washington Wizards. Tom Brady reneged on retirement, losing football games and his marriage in the process.

Michael Jordan, Tom Brady, and Wayne Gretzky are widely considered the best to ever lace ‘em up in their respective sports. Kobe Bryant, Peyton Manning, and Ray Borque — for all their greatness — are a rung below.

But when it comes to a graceful landing, those three left the all-timers in the dust. They had the mental fortitude to pull the plug at a moment of jubilation. To resist the urge to just get one more. To repel the temptation to defy Father Time yet again.

That’s not an easy choice for a pro athlete to make. Especially when those athletes have spent decades following the advice of Jim Valvano.

I may never attain the athleticism of Michael Jordan, the poise of Tom Brady, or the grace of Wayne Gretzky. But as I walked to the starting line of my fateful 10K race, I felt the same competitive spirit they did.

Instead of embracing the process of recovery, I was visualizing my comeback.

I was playing with fire. And I got burned.

You gotta know when to hold em. And know when to fold em…

Many of us know the words to Kenny Rogers’ hit The Gambler by heart. But few of us have followed them with precision.

One exception? Champion Poker players.

You see, walking away is a key strategy in Poker. For there are times when you just don’t have the cards.

In those moments, doubling down on a bluff can prove costly. Better to cut your losses and live to fight another day.

Annie Duke understands this. As one of the greatest professional poker players of all time, Duke has long been renowned for making the right choice at the table. And sometimes the right choice was to walk away.

Duke has compiled that knowledge in several acclaimed books on decision making. One of those is called Quit: The Power in Knowing When to Walk Away.

As I write this, I still haven’t gotten my hands on the book. But I probably could have used its counsel recently.

I had returned from my injury and set my eyes on competing once again. But my will was ahead of my legs, and I kept suffering setbacks.

I had two significant races coming up — a half-marathon and a full one. Both required several weeks of dedicated training. And now, I had to decide whether to proceed.

The competitor in me was daring to soldier on. I had already missed so much time for something more significant. Surely, I wouldn’t be felled by this.

But the pragmatist in me was screaming to pull the plug. It remembered what happened when I ran that ill-advised race. And when I continued to train on that bad leg.

For days, I agonized over what to do.

For there was no smoking gun this time. No MRI report to peruse. No doctor’s orders keeping me out of the race.

The decision would be mine, and mine alone.

Ultimately, I did withdraw from both races. It was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make. But I’m confident it was the right one — and one that will pay dividends long term.

So no, the story hasn’t ended happily for me. At least not this chapter.

But perhaps there’s something we can all learn from my saga, and from all the examples that somehow influenced it.

Pulling the plug is not an automatic marker of weakness. In the right context, it can be a powerful weapon.

Let that context be your compass, and my loss be your lesson. And you may yet find the seas of life to be a bit less treacherous.

Godspeed.

Ingrata Terra

Way up on the overpass, you can see the marks. Silt-laden smudges leaving a permanent tattoo on the concrete.

They’re the marks you might expect to see on the bottom of a Mississippi River barge. Or perhaps on a bayfront causeway.

But this overpass was neither of those things. Instead, it was part of a highway intersection in Houston, Texas.

Now, Houston isn’t exactly the desert. There are plenty of bayous, streams, and lakes around town.

But this intersection wasn’t near any of those. And that made the silt markings even more jarring.

Indeed, those rust-colored imprints are a reminder. A reminder of a time when the water flowed into places normally high and dry.

I’m talking, of course, about Hurricane Harvey — the thousand-year storm that inundated Southeast Texas in 2017.

Houston had dealt with flooding events before, and it had been decked by the occasional hurricane. But it had never seen anything to this magnitude.

Days of heavy rain saturated the area. Roads turned to rivers, and inundated homeowners awaited rescue as the rising waters destroyed their possessions. Power and supplies dwindled as desperation soared.

By the time it was over, Hurricane Harvey had killed more than 100 people and caused $125 billion in damage. As Americans looked on in horror, a question started percolating.

Why would anyone want to live in a place like Houston?

The irony was palpable.

For the Houston metro area — the nation’s fifth largest — had once been lauded for its livability.

There were ample jobs in multiple industries, bountiful entertainment options, and plenty of large homes to choose from. Most of the country was a three-hour flight away. And there was no state income tax.

Sure, the summers could be swampy, and the traffic could be miserable. But idea of setting down roots in Southeast Texas was considered more boon than burden.

Harvey changed that. And now — long after the floodwaters have receded — Houston is viewed by many as Ingrata Terra, or unwelcome land.

To outsiders, those silt marks on the concrete are more than scars of a past trauma. They’re indicators of a cursed destiny.

Dropping anchor in the shadow of such symbols would be foolhardy. Better to choose somewhere safer.

The Ingrata Terra argument is gaining steam these days. And not just in Texas.

A spate of wildfires in California has sparked a backlash against development in the WUI — or Wildland Urban Interface. That’s the spot where human development intrudes upon nature.

In Florida, a deadly condo collapse has left many reconsidering the prospect of living on the beach. Between erosion and storm concerns, the risk certainly seems to outweigh the reward.

And in the Rust Belt, the decline of once-dominant industries has led many to claim some once-prominent cities dead. The supposed demise of Detroit, Cleveland, and Buffalo is a well-known tale these days — even if it’s being penned by those living several states away.

Yes, the glass house effect is in full force. We throw stones at locations that have weathered these storms, propping up our unblemished locales in comparison.

Such actions are foolish, for multiple reasons.

First, nowhere is truly safe from calamity. Disasters are getting more unpredictable by the year. Places that have been unscathed by them thus far are likely sitting ducks.

Second, Ingrata Terra assumes that cities can’t rebound. It posits that a metro area can’t better prepare itself for the next catastrophe. It presumes that the region’s eulogy is part and parcel with the initial crisis.

This thinking is simply not true. And there’s ample proof as to why.

Back when I was in middle school, I visited New Orleans with my family.

It was February, and the Crescent City was in the Mardi Gras spirit. I was amazed by the atmosphere, I was mesmerized by the food, and I couldn’t get enough of the warm weather. I couldn’t understand why everyone didn’t want to live down the Bayou.

Some years later, New Orleans got pummeled by Hurricane Katrina. The levees failed, the city got flooded, and many residents lost everything.

In the wake of this disaster, a new debate arose. Was the Crescent City worth rebuilding?

Many argued that it wasn’t. After all, New Orleans sat at sea level, surrounded by swamps, lakes, and rivers. With its Gulf Coast location, it would likely be in the path of many other hurricanes. And counting on the levees for salvation seemed like a fool’s errand, given what had just occurred.

Still, the city did rebuild, revitalizing the levee system in the process. The criticism was fast and furious, but New Orleans tuned out the noise and churned ahead.

Many years later, Hurricane Ida took fresh aim at the Louisiana Bayou. Once again, prognosticators called for catastrophe as the storm bore down on the Crescent City.

But the levee system did its job. New Orleans didn’t fill like a bathtub this time. It survived the worst of Ida mostly intact.

More than 1,000 miles away in New York, people weren’t quite as fortunate.

After churning its way through the Deep South and Appalachia, Ida’s remnants buzzed right across the Big Apple. Nearly a foot of rain fell in less than an hour, inundated many streets and homes. Several residents drowned in flooded basements.

The sense of irony was tragic.

Many calls for the abandonment of New Orleans post-Katrina had come from the New York area. The land of a million pundits was supposedly a more stable location for development than the lower Mississippi Delta.

But now, it was New York reeling in the wake of a storm. A storm that had decked Louisiana with all its fury but could not bring the Bayou to its knees.

Ingrata Terra? It’s pure folly.

Some years back, archeologists found the remains of an English king.

Such a discovery normally would not raise eyebrows. This is what archeologists do, after all.

Nevertheless, the discovery led to international news coverage. Mostly on account of where the remains were found.

You see, the dig site wasn’t some remote stretch of land, or the fringes of an old church. No, King Richard III was found beneath a parking lot.

This saga demonstrates a great many traits about humanity — including our knack for adaptability.

At the time of King Richard III’s burial, no commoner would dared have left his horse above his regal remains. But over the centuries, society adapted. Memories faded, areas were rezoned, and a parking lot cropped up on hallowed ground.

Indeed, the world is what we make of it. We’ve built cities in the desert, carved our likenesses into the mountains, and harnessed the energy of the wind and the sun.

Nature might strike back from time to time, but it’s hardly enough to slow our roll.

Ingrata terra might have applied centuries ago. But these days, it’s hardly a factor.

So maybe it’s time to look at those Houston overpasses in a new light. Those rusty marks are not harbingers of doom. They’re a reminder of all that we’ve overcome.

Ingrata terra can’t be found here.

On Neediness

Meow! Meow! Meow!

The sound reverberated through the house, piercing the serenity of Christmas morning.

My friends and I all made our way to the living room, looking like Zombies. The cat stared at us and meowed some more.

We all desired something at that moment. The cat yearned for food, the humans for sleep.

Only one of the species would get what we wanted. The one with paws, fur, and an enviable sense of dexterity.

Indeed, moments later, the cat was working his way through a newly filled bowl. The meowing had ceased.

Meanwhile, we were all still awake and groggy as heck.

It was to be a joyous day ahead. Perhaps the most joyous one on the calendar. But at this moment, that spirit was sorely lacking.

Anything I say before coffee cannot be used against me.

On its face, this adage is straightforward. We’re often not at our best in the early morning light. That little pick-me-up works wonders.

But it also speaks wonders about our neediness.

We need coffee to feel sufficiently energized. And we need to feel “with it” as early in the day as possible.

These needs have defined cultural norms. They’ve also helped fuel an $85 billion industry in the United States.

I can’t say I was thinking about all this on that Christmas morning, as I fired up my friends’ Keurig machine for a cup of liquid inspiration. But as I stared over at the cat, now contented, it dawned on me just how needy we all are.

Not just the young or old or disabled.

All of us.

In September 1992, a hunter in the Alaskan bush came upon the remains of Chris McCandless.

McCandless had made his way into the wilderness of The Last Frontier hoping to live off the land, free of wants. But that land had devoured him whole.

The McCandless tragedy has been turned into a book and feature film, both called Into the Wild. For years, many of those who encountered the tale have found themselves debating his actions and motivations.

But to me, such arguments are beside the point. For Chris McCandless is just the tip of the iceberg.

You see, there have been plenty of others who undertook a similar quest, with similar reasoning, and suffered a similar fate. Only in their case, there was no hunter to come upon their remains while they were still recognizable.

Yes, the headline of this sad saga should have nothing to do with adventure or determinism. Instead, it should pinpoint a simple fact.

There is nowhere we can go to escape neediness.

This is an uncomfortable thought. A taboo one even in our society, where a central tenet is self-sufficiency.

But all that baggage can’t block out the truth.

We all need a lot — whether we’re off the grid or on it.

When I was growing up, my family went on several road trips.

On the highway, my parents had only one rule.

If we came across a rest stop, we would all need to at least try to use the restroom.

For the open road represented a significant challenge. As we crossed miles upon miles of blacktop, there were few opportunities for us to satisfy some of our most basic biological needs. Forcing the issue at a highway rest stop was our best bet.

On its face, I realize how ridiculous this whole charade was. As a runner, I will confess to stopping at far less glamorous locales than highway rest stops to relieve myself. It comes with the territory when putting in the miles.

But just because it’s possible to take care of business anywhere doesn’t make it acceptable. Anyone who’s ever read a travel horror story thread knows that cleanliness is paramount while traveling.

Whether we’re 5 or 55, we need a climate-controlled location with indoor plumbing, toilet paper and liquid soap for our pit stops. Nothing less will do.

Of course, those can’t be found at every mile marker or exit. So, we need to take seize the rest stop opportunities we do come across. That’s the only way we can meet both our needs and society’s demands of us.

Looking back now, my parents weren’t setting the rules by pulling off the highway at every rest stop. They were abiding by them.

And these days, I find myself doing the same.

Not long ago, I headed into the office to get some work done.

This statement would hardly have been worth writing a few years back. But in an era of hybrid and remote work, it’s almost an oddity.

Indeed, only one other person was in the massive office suite that day. All around me, rows of cubicles sat vacant. The silence was deafening.

It was clear that this space — my company’s regional headquarters — wasn’t needed anymore in its current form. Indeed, the company has plans to decommission it.

But I need something like it.

You see, my home is many things. But an office is not one of them.

There is no built-in space for a desk and external monitors. So, I end up working from a laptop on my dining room table when I’m not in the office.

It’s a woefully inadequate setup. And my work from it is subpar as well.

So, even in an office-less future for my region, I will need office space.

In my quest for such a space, I’ve tried to keep things simple.

A private room with an internet connection and a stand for my webcam and external monitors would suffice. After all, that’s what’s technically required for me to deliver my work on time and hold virtual meetings with discretion.

But I soon realized that wouldn’t be enough.

I needed a large enough desk to eat my lunch at. I needed access to a clean and well-maintained restroom. I needed climate control and somewhere to park my car.

Oh, and coffee. I needed plenty of coffee.

These requirements would seem like novelties to construction workers, oilfield roughnecks and ranchers. And yet, like many so-called knowledge workers, I couldn’t imagine doing my best work without them readily available.

Am I that needy? Are we all?

It certainly appears so. But there’s nothing wrong with that.

Why did the cat dampen Christmas spirits? Why did Chris McCandless wander off into the wild? Why did I roll my eyes at those forced road trip pit stops and then nearly forget to add a restroom — a restroom — to the list of my office essentials?

It’s because of the stigma around having needs.

Yes, we treat neediness as a sign of weakness. It’s a black mark. A strain on others. A crutch.

With this in mind, we do our best to suppress our needs. We put ourselves through strife to avoid appearing vulnerable.

But no one wins at the end of this process. In fact, we all lose.

It’s time to do away with that misguided machismo. It’s time to say sayonara to the mirage of wanting for nothing.

We all need plenty for ourselves and from each other. The steps we take and the structures we build to satisfy those needs — those are the lifeblood of our society.

So, let’s give ourselves a break, and give neediness its due.

We wouldn’t be here today without it, and we won’t realize the promise of tomorrow unless we accept it.