Category: Reflections

Faded Glory

It was so much better back then.

This is the great lament. The pang of regret, of longing, of melancholy nostalgia that eats at many of us from time to time.

When the present seems uncertain or uncomfortable, it’s all too natural to look backward. To rewind to a moment that seems more familiar and less scary. To gaze upon the shiny glow of that moment and believe in its superiority.

But as the saying goes, All that glitters is not gold.

When I look at the world around me, I tend to take the long view.

After all, the structures around us are built to last. Highways, homes and infrastructure have been designed to stand the test of time. And the average life expectancy in the developed world is going up too.

Yes, there are notable exceptions to these standard measures. But on the whole, things seem to be designed for the long-haul. And so, I focus on how we can continue to better ourselves over an extended time period.

But even as I stare toward the horizon, I’m keenly aware of what lies 6 inches from my nose. The short-term might not be my main focus, but it still matters.

In recent times, that fact has been more evident than ever.

A dangerous virus has forced us to upend our patterns of social interaction. A recession has left millions without an income. And longstanding tensions from race relations and political divisiveness have threatened to boil over.

The sun may still be shining in America. But it’s been hard to feel the warm glow.

As I’ve watched the short-term outlook deteriorate, I’ve found myself yearning for better days. Not in the uncertain future. But in the distant past.

I’ve found myself nostalgic for the 1990s.

The 1990s. What a time it was.

I was only a kid back then, but I recall things being harmonious. There didn’t seem to be as imminent threats out there. And there didn’t appear to be as much division and despair as what’s commonplace these days.

We could just live back then. At least that’s the way I remember it.

But take a wider view, and it’s clear that my rosy memories of that era are incomplete.

For one thing, there was still plenty of division. It was just underground. The Internet as we know it was in its nascent stages. And with no social media channels or smartphones, it was all but impossible for the divisive bickering of that era to reach today’s levels of public consciousness.

For another thing, there was plenty of despair to be found. While the United States government was running a budget surplus, unemployment numbers were often still above 5 percent. Plenty of people were poor, hungry and without a path to a better tomorrow. The angst that bands like Nirvana channeled in their music those days was real.

But these facts weren’t hitting me in the face at that time. For I was in a middle-class household under the care of  attentive parents. I was insulated from the darkness of those days.

Well, mostly.

My family did get the print version of the New York Times. And on my way to scanning the sports section, I would see the front page headlines.

The partisan bitterness during President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial. Instances of racial profiling amongst the New Jersey state troopers. The horrific murder of James Byrd, who was chained to a pickup truck by racists in rural Texas and dragged for nearly three miles.

I would look at these stories in horror. But after a day or two, the routine of life would kick in — school, homework, family dinner — and I would forget all about the ugliness that lurked all around me.

There is no blissful ignorance. Not anymore.

Recent events have laid bare the disharmony of life. The gulf of distrust between us. The presence of vile hatred in pockets of society. And the inequality of opportunity.

In the past several years, we’ve been asked to part with our rooted assumptions. To change our behavior in order to promote equity and ensure safety.

We should be up for the challenge. After all, this task has been asked of us for the entirety of the millennium. Or at least since the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

And yet, we’d still rather escape to a rosy memory than tackle the beast in our midst.

Even as that rosy memory remains illustrative fiction.

Hindsight may be 20-20. But the benefit of clarity comes at the cost of context.

It may be easy to look back on a previous era and call it friendlier. But if we could hop in Doc Brown’s DeLorean and travel back there, the situation on the ground would look much different.

I may be look happily on the 1990s now. But truth be told, I wasn’t all that happy back then. I was saddled with anxiety and battling depression. My joyful memories help hide the acute pain I felt in that moment.

And I wasn’t alone. Plenty of people with more life experience than me were also miserable. And they yearned for an era that had passed them by. Even in the afterglow of the Iron Curtain’s collapse, many didn’t feel the present was a step forward.

This pattern has continued to perpetuate. In the social media age, people like to brand each year the Worst Year Ever. This branding stuck in 2009, when Michael Jackson died unexpectedly and a recession decimated the economy. But such a moniker also stuck in 2010, 2011, 2012, and so on.

In the fog of the moment, we are incapable of finding the right does of perspective. And that can become a major problem.

The moment now facing us is unprecedented.

It’s uncomfortable to have to abandon such hallmarks as social interaction or in-person entertainment. It’s disconcerting to think that a trip to a grocery store could ultimately kill us. And it’s excruciating to stumble through the mist with no idea when this moment will be over.

Just about no one is looking at this era with a smile on their face.

But we can do better than seeking an escape.

We can search for the silver linings. We can build for a brighter future. We can focus on our actions and mute our laments.

We can reshape our situation in a manner we can be proud of for years to come.

Nothing’s stopping us from doing this. Nothing but ourselves.

So, let’s break free of the hamster wheel.

The past might be comforting. But the present is still being written. And the future is up for grabs.

Let’s seize the moment.

Home Away

The faded light of dawn appeared out of the airplane window, barely illuminating a dark gray wall of mountains.

There were no houses, no lights. Just the mountains, surrounded in early morning solitude.

I had no idea where I was, only where I was headed. And I had no idea what to expect when I got there.

Some time later, the plane touched down in Santiago, Chile. I groggily made my way through passport control and customs, still weary from the overnight flight. I quickly knocked the rust off my Spanish as I attempted to locate the point person for my study abroad program.

I had never met this man. I just had a name and a phone number. Fortunately, I found him a short time later.

After a few more students made their way through customs, we all got into a van and embarked on a 90-minute journey to the Pacific Coast.

All of this was new to me. I had never been to South America before. And I’d never traveled abroad alone.

Still, as we made our way through arid landscapes and coastal mountain passes, something seemed strikingly familiar about where I was heading.

This odd déjà vu continued after I arrived in Viña Del Mar — the seaside city that would my home for the next six weeks. Even after taking a nap and walking around the city, I still felt strangely comfortable.

I had never before felt like this after leaving the United States. When I traveled to Spain, France, and Italy with my family as a teenager, the unfamiliarity overwhelmed me at first.

You might think this was due to the language barrier. But I felt the same way when I traveled to England, or even Canada.

Something just felt off compared to what I was used to. And I had to adjust — quickly.

But Chile was different. It reminded me of California.

Yes, the architecture was different and everyone spoke Spanish. But the landscape and the cuisine had a distinct California vibe.

It rained every day of my first week in Chile. The skies were foreboding and the sidewalks were flooded. This all seemed so un-Californian, and it should have broken my spell. But I ignored the reminders from the heavens.

I still felt calm and reassured. The locals were quiet and reserved, a perfect match for my introverted nature. The food included steak sandwiches, French fries and hot dogs with avocado and mayonnaise — all close enough to what I could get back home. And the streets were broad and easy to navigate, much like a city in the United States.

My mood only changed when I found out about student protests engulfing the area. Students had taken over the campus of a university in nearby Valparaiso, where one of my classes was to be held. Other students were out protesting in the center of the city.

My class in Valparaiso was moved to a different building, and it went on as scheduled. But we were warned not to check out the protests going on nearby.

The Caribineros de Chile  — Chile’s national police force — routinely use tear gas and water cannons to break up protests, we were told. And the study abroad program leaders didn’t want us to risk getting injured.

My roommate ignored this advice at first. As a journalism major, he felt it was his duty to cover what was going on. So, he headed into the fray of a protest.

He returned with bloodshot eyes and a runny nose. He had stayed a couple of blocks away from the action, but tear gas doesn’t discriminate. After he washed his face, he told me he wouldn’t be heading out to check out the protests again.

The entire scenario was unsettling to me.

This was years before the Ferguson protests in Missouri, where police used tear gas and rubber bullets to assert control. Protests in the United States were mostly peaceful back then. Or at least that’s what I believed to be true.

Seeing police using such force against similar types of protests was jarring. While I had heard much about the atrocities of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship, those days were long gone in Chile. And everything else I had seen on the ground to that point reminded me of American values.

It was my We’re not in Kansas anymore moment. I might have felt at home, but I was very much away.

So many memories come to mind when I think of my time in Chile.

There were the exotic ones: Riding horses over massive sand dunes. Skiing high in the Andes. Seeing the Southern Cross in the night sky of the Elqui Valley. And exploring Santiago — a mountainous city that seemed like a cross between Denver and New York.

And there were the familiar ones: Watching a movie at a Cinemark movie theater. Shopping at the mall. Watching the sun set over the ocean.

The similarities outstrip the differences, in my mind — even today. Even though I knew I was abroad — in a nation where police used brute force to quell unrest — the familiarity of my experience still makes me nostalgic.

Chile seemed to be proof that American-style economics and structural ideals could thrive abroad. Yes, the United States had taken some damaging steps to bring these ideals to the nation, including supporting a coup and the deadly Pinochet dictatorship that followed. But in the post-Cold War — and post-Pinochet — era, Chile appeared to be thriving and harmonious.

That synergy with my home nation is what kept me calm throughout my time south of the equator. It’s what made six weeks on another continent feel more like a day at the beach than a plunge into an icy lake. It’s what makes me yearn to return someday.

But now, I wonder if it all was a mirage.

Recently, there’s been lots of unrest in Chile.

Throughout Santiago, people have taken to the streets to protest the inequities of life there.

It all started with a 30 peso increase to the Santiago Metro fares.

This would be equivalent to a 4 cent fare increase to a public transit system in the United States. Seemingly innocuous.

However, thousands of Chileans saw it differently.

For the cost of living in Chile has gone up in recent years. But wages and employment opportunities have not kept up.

The financial situation has trapped many Chileans in poverty or on the lower end of the middle-class. The stagnation carries across generations — even older Chileans are finding that their pensions and retirement funds are far less valuable than they once expected.

It’s been a fraught situation. But the Metro fare increase was the spark that brought it to the fore.

It’s not about 30 pesos. It’s about 30 years, the protesters have been chanting. And as their anger has risen, the protests have turned ever more violent.

There are reports of protesters breaking store windows, spraying graffiti on buildings, setting fires and defacing much of the Metro system — previously one of the nicest in the world.

Police have responded with the usual display of force — tear gas and water cannons. But this time things feel different.

This time the unrest is widespread. This time the world is watching.

It makes me sad to see all of this. To see the Chile I got to know and love go up in flames.

For Chileans are not normally flamboyant or bombastic. Unlike their neighbors to the east in Argentina, Chileans are generally reserved and respectful.

To see so many of them turning to violence reminds me that they must really be hurting. They must feel as if they are without hope, and out of options for peaceful discourse.

This breaks my heart.

In my mind, Chile is a magical place. A nation with a unique mix of natural beauty, kind people and western ideals.

I’m not alone.

Many others have looked with wonder at Chile’s rise to a capitalist power over the last several decades. They refer to Chile as an economic miracle.

And instead of focusing on the nation’s checkered past, they point to its bright future.

Have we all been hoodwinked? Have we deluded ourselves into thinking that silence equated to success?

I certainly hope not.

For if capitalism has failed Chile, I shudder to think of the alternatives.

All across South America, from Argentina to Venezuela and Bolivia to Brazil, Chile’s neighbors have been roiled by political and economic crises in recent years. I wonder if a move to a different model would yield the same destructive results.

But mostly, I wonder if my memories of Chile were even reliable.

People seemed happy and content. But could they have been coerced into silence by the memories of the dictatorship? Or by the police’s heavy-handed responses to any sign of unrest?

It’s certainly possible.

Either way, I hope Chile can resolve its current issues peacefully. And I hope Chileans can find a future full of prosperity.

My home away from home deserves nothing less.

Reference Points

Shake it. Shake it. Shake it. Shake it like a Polaroid picture.

These are lyrics from an up-tempo hit song called Hey Ya — which was released by the Hip-Hop duo Outkast. If you’ve been to a party in recent years, this song was likely on the playlist.

The song was recorded in 2002. Which means it’s not all that old, but it’s not exactly hot off the presses either.

And while the tune remains distinctive, signs of its age are evident.

There are some lines that name-drop figures that remain relevant today (Beyonce), and others that don’t (Lucy Liu).

And then there’s that reference to Polaroid pictures. A reference that’s starting to wilt against the weight of time.

Why? Consider this.

There are many several high school students across America who weren’t even born when Hey Ya first hit the airwaves. Teenagers who don’t even know what a Polaroid picture is.

In a few short years, these high schoolers will be the young adults at the parties where Hey Ya is played. And they won’t understand what Outkast is talking about.

A musical masterpiece will fade into mediocrity. All because the perspective will have shifted.

And that, in no small way, is tragic.

 

Hey Ya is not the only entertainment staple to age poorly. Far from it.

Many songs feature over-the-hill cultural references. Many TV shows have dated set decorations and graphics. And many movies feature “cutting-edge” features that have become a punch line in the years after their cinematic releases.

When we encounter these works of art today, we’re ensconced by nostalgia. The memories come flooding back, and our hearts gush as we reminisce.

Yet, there’s a bittersweet side to all the warm fuzzies.

For we know that there are others who won’t ever have a chance to see the world as we once did. To truly participate in the trips down memory lane these pieces of entertainment provide us.

There’s a connection that’s missing — one that has drifted out of sight behind us. These entertainment relics and our own memories are the only bridges connecting us to them.

Sometimes that connection is more style than substance. Polaroid pictures were one a nice gimmick — glossy photos that developed in real-time — but digital photography quickly proved them obsolete.

Other times, the connection is more substantial. Payphones might seem ludicrous to anyone under the age of 25 these days, but they were once an important part of life to everyone else. In an era before everyone had a supercomputer in their pocket, payphones were critical for making plans on the go.

As time moves on and new tools emerge, these erstwhile staples of life get lost. And the cultural remnants capsize with them.

For the perspective has shifted. The new reality is all that’s relevant now.

Reference points mean everything.

Four years ago this week, I launched Words of the West with a confession. One that read I am not perfect.

That statement is as true today as it was then. But I wonder how much else from those early days is still valid.

The world has changed a lot in four years — becoming ever more complicated, divisive and cynical.

And I have grown a lot in four years — pushing my own boundaries and using my voice ever more boldly.

With all this growth and change, today’s reference points are a far cry from those of four years ago.

And while I’ve tried to make each and every one of these articles stand up to the test of time, I know that some simply cannot.

For what they refer to is dated. And their relevance has faded.

This bothers me.

I don’t want to my words to become mothballed relics. To be as irrelevant as Rand McNally atlases in the age of connected cars.

No, I want my words to remain resonant. I want my messages to help and inspire others.

That is why I’ve committed to sharing a fresh article each and every week for four straight years. And that why I plan on sharing articles for years to come.

Misplaced references represent missed opportunities for me to achieve these objectives. And while missed opportunities are inevitable in life, it doesn’t make them any more welcome.

And so, against my better judgment, I rue lost opportunities.

But should I?

There’s not a day goes by I don’t feel regret. Not because I’m in here, because you think I should. I look back on the way I was then: a young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him. I want to try to talk some sense to him, tell him the way things are. But I can’t. That kid’s long gone, and this old man is all that’s left.

This soliloquy comes from the 1994 movie The Shawshank Redemption. And even though that movie is eight years older than the song Hey Ya, this passage stands a better chance of passing the test of time.

Why is that?

It’s not because we inherently relate to the character who uttered it — Red Redding. After all, it’s unlikely that any of us have found ourselves in a parole hearing after spending 40 years in prison for murder.

No, we relate to this passage because of its mention of shifting reference points.

Red is candid about how time alone has changed him. He steadfastly admits that the man he is after four decades behind bars is not the one he was when he committed a heinous crime. But he also acknowledges there is no real link between those two moments he can traverse.

There is no silver lining. Just the cold, hard truth.

This moment resonates with me. For I see my own plight just as clearly as Red saw his.

With each day, new opportunity dawns. But old references fade further into irrelevance.

Past words lack meaning. Faded memories lack context. And old messages become as obsolete as the payphone or the Polaroid.

There is nothing I can do to stem the tide of change. I can only keep charging ahead, knowing that tomorrow will bring the promise of a bright, new reality.

Reference points are merely guideposts reminding me of where I’ve been. Reminding me of how far I’ve come.

Perhaps, in this light, the faded references from Hey Ya won’t seem so sinister. And the obsolescence of yesterday’s lessons won’t seem so stark.

Our future is bright. But our past doesn’t need to be forgotten.

So, let us not lose our reference points. They’re more useful than we might think.

What We Can’t Forget

As the car pulled away, I looked out the passenger side window.

There they were, my grandmother and grandfather waving from inside the screen door of their house in Queens, New York.

The memory feels like yesterday, but it was so much longer ago than that.

It has to be.

I’ve been in Texas for nearly a decade, and my grandfather was crippled by a stroke less than two years after I moved west. He spent most of his time sitting on the sofa when I went to visit him in the years following the stroke.

After he passed, my grandmother sold the house and moved into an apartment in Manhattan with my parents. Less than two years later, she too was gone.

Memories are all that remain. But the details are ever more in doubt.

As I get older, I have no way of knowing for sure if my memories are accurate.

Did everything really happen the way I remember it? Was what I recall seeing, hearing and sensing real, or was it just a mirage?

When I think of that image of my grandparents waving goodbye from their front foyer, I’m not sure if I’m digging up a memory from 10 years ago or if my mind is playing tricks on me.

After all, my grandmother waved goodbye at us from that same spot each time we left the home, up until she sold it. My memories could be conflated.

There’s no way for me to know for sure.

Never Forget.

Those two words are imprinted in my mind forever.

I’m sharing this article 18 years after the darkest day of my life: September 11, 2001.

I’ve shared my memories of that day and its aftermath on Words of the West before. It’s the most important thing I’ve ever done.

Sharing my memories of that day has helped me heal. It’s brought me a sense of peace I had thought I’d never find again.

Yet, even as I move forward, the memories of that day continue to haunt me. As is the case with any traumatic stress event, I’m sure I will remain affected for the rest of my life.

Those haunting memories spike on September 11th each year. Not only do I know what the calendar reads, but all the old images and video clips resurface across the Internet, social media and mainstream media.

It’s like a refresher course, recalibrating my memories of the worst day of my life.

You could say I was one of the lucky ones. I was six miles uptown from the carnage at the World Trade Center. There are no Associated Press photos of me walking across the Brooklyn Bridge with the sky behind me looking like a war zone. There are no videos of me watching in horror as the twin towers crumbled.

Yet, I have my own memories to deal with. Of eerily quiet Manhattan streets. Of heavily armed National Guardsmen at a toll bridge, telling us Go, go, get out of here! Of thinking that at any moment, my life might be taken from me.

Those all come bubbling up, each time the calendar turns to September 11th.

I don’t want to forget.

Good or bad — it doesn’t matter. I want to remember.

I pride myself on what I can recall. On how I use that past experience to make prudent decisions.

Memory is important to me because it impacts all three of the foundational pillars of my life.

Be Present. Be Informed. Be Better.

So, I fight doggedly against the fog of amnesia. I don’t drink alcohol. I get a good night’s sleep. I keep my brain active as often as I can.

And I hang on to my memories. Even the memory that has left me forever broken.

It’s difficult. Gut-wrenchingly difficult. But I fight through the pain.

I pay attention to the remembrances on September 11th. And each year, when I visit New York, I go to the 9/11 Memorial and pray for the victims.

Yet, the more time passes, and the more I subject myself to this kind of masochism, the more doubt creeps into my mind.

The year 2001 was more than half my life ago. I was a young teenager — a kid — on the day my life changed forever. And now, there are now legal adults who have only known a post 9/11 world.

These facts serve as a stark reminder that 18 years is a long time, and even the most traumatic memories can get distorted over that period.

I don’t know if my memories of that day are still accurate, or if they’ve faded a bit.

I want them to be accurate. I don’t want to be accused of embellishing anything from a day we are told — rightfully — to Never Forget.

But there’s no way I can know for sure how much of what I remember is accurate.

When the towers fell, I was in school — a school I left 8 months later. When I got home, my family watched Aaron Brown’s reports on the tragedy on CNN. But my parents and sister were too shell-shocked to keep watching the marathon coverage. So, I spent much of the event in front of the TV alone.

The only part of the day that was easily verifiable was the treacherous trip home. My father was with me that whole time. He recalls what I do.

The rest of the day — what I said, what I did, what I thought — I experienced alone. Those words, actions and emotions have been an important part of my life for nearly two decades. But now, more and more, I can’t tell which of them are real.

Perhaps it’s meant to be this way.

Perhaps our memories are meant to degrade when exposed to the cruel hands of time.

After all, our bodies betray us as we age. It’s only logical that our minds would follow the same path to irrelevance.

Even so, a fuzzy memory is not a welcome sight in our society.

In a world where cameras are always rolling, there is no room for error. The proof is there, in pictures and video. And we’re getting fact-checked all the time.

We don’t forget the events of 9/11 because we can’t forget. There are dozens of documentaries showing footage of the planes flying into the Twin Towers. Of the cloud of debris cascading down the cavernous streets of Lower Manhattan.

The evidence is overwhelming. But is that what really matters?

When I come across these iconic images, I’m almost numb to them. Sure, my pulse quickens and my face turns flushed, but that’s to be expected.

It’s my recollections of that fateful day that get me emotional.

The paralyzing sensation of fear. The realization that I might not survive. And the understanding that if I did, my life would be forever changed.

That is what brings tears to my eyes. That is what brings me to my knees.

And regardless how much my recollections of the details might fade, that is what I will never, ever forget.

Therein lies the truth of the matter.

Memories are not about logic. They’re not about timestamping the images in our mind and cross-checking them for rogue filters.

No, memories are about emotion instead.

That image of my grandparents waving goodbye is poignant because they are now gone. Regardless of the details, that memory is a bridge connecting me with two of the most beloved figures in my life.

And those recollections I have of the darkest day of my life are poignant as well. They might induce nightmares, but they also remind me not to take life for granted.

We all have memories that are intertwined with our emotions. Even if we didn’t live through the horrors of New York City on September 11, 2001.

Let us cherish these memories, rather than interrogate them.

For that connection to our heart and our soul — that is something we can’t afford to lose.

May we never forget.

Leap of Faith

I stood on the platform and took in the view.

To my left and right were palm trees and buildings, illuminated in the steamy morning sunshine.

Below me — some 33 feet below me — was a swimming pool.

I was at the top of the 10 meter dive tower at the University of Miami. And at this moment, I was wondering what I had got myself into.

Wow, I thought. I can see all of campus from here.

Not exactly a reassuring thought, as I prepared to plunge into the water three stories below.

My mind started to race.

What if I overshoot the pool and land on the concrete? What if I injure myself hitting the water? What in the world am I doing?

I thought back to the only time I had seen someone up on the platform who wasn’t on the diving team. It was a girl who won a belly-flop contest the lifeguards set up. She ran off the edge, screaming in terror until she was underwater.

We all laughed insensitively, because that’s what college kids do. But now, the joke was on me.

I looked back at the narrow ladders I had climbed to get here. They looked even more treacherous to descend.

There was only one realistic way down. I knew it. But I wasn’t ready.

I felt a pit in my stomach. The sweat from my anxiety mixed with that from the humidity.

I closed my eyes and opened them. Then I ran off the edge.

The first thing I remember seeing was the water through my peripheral vision.

No, not the peripheral vision that helps us see what’s to our left and right without us turning our heads. The peripheral vision that helps us see what’s above and below us.

We normally don’t think about what we visualize from this vantage point. After all, looking at our shoes gets old pretty quick.

But we’re normally not hurtling 30 feet toward the ground. That changes things.

I was falling, but the water still looked distant. So I started flailing my legs, thinking that would somehow soften the blow.

Suddenly, I remembered the instructions I was given: Run off the edge and make sure you’re straight up when you hit the water.

I stopped moving my legs and let gravity run its course.

As soon I did this, something unexpected happened. I felt a strange sense of calm.

I let gravity do its work. Everything felt Zen.

Well, everything except that rushing sound in my ears. It kept getting louder and louder.

That sound was the air flying by me as I was in freefall. And it was getting louder because I was speeding up.

Suddenly, the water was right below me. I was close — painfully close — to impact.

I made a last ditch effort to straighten my legs. Then, SPLASH.

I hit the water like a ton of bricks. My feet and ankles felt the sting of impact.

After dropping close to 10 feet underwater, I started to ascend back to the surface. Then I slowly swam over to the ladder and climbed onto the deck.

My classmate approached me, holding my digital camera and a few other items I’d temporarily put in her care.

This whole crazy experience was her idea.

She was an NCAA champion diver, and we were in a video production class together. She was at the pool that morning filming a promo for a class project.

She had asked me to tag along to help her carry the video equipment, since some of the clips she was filming were from the 3 meter springboard — about 10 feet above the pool deck. I happily obliged.

“Wear your swim trunks,” she told me the day before the shoot. “That way, you can jump off the 10 Meter when we’re done.”

Now, I had just that. And the adrenaline had yet to wear off.

“Oh, that was something else!” I told my classmate. “Say, which height did you win the NCAA title in, again?”

“The 10 Meter,” she calmly replied.

I stared at her, awestruck.

Diving off the 10 Meter means walking to the edge of that 33 foot high platform and turning around in such a way that your toes are just about the only part of your body still making contact with that platform. It means propelling yourself backwards off the edge, headfirst. It means contorting your body into a set of elaborate twists and rolls as you’re falling. And it means entering the water with pinpoint precision.

It takes a leap of faith just to do this once. As NCAA champion, my classmate had done this hundreds of times — often in the heat of intense competition. And she executed it to precision when it mattered most.

This was no fluke. Three years after my leap of the 10 Meter, my classmate was in London, representing the United States in diving at the Olympic games. There’s no doubt that she’s the best athlete I’ve ever personally met.

Even so, her daily accomplishments from the diving platform put everything in perspective. That acute fear I’d felt moments earlier seemed downright silly now.

I took a deep breath, and resolved not to make such a big deal out of what I’d just done.

In the years since my plunge from the 10 Meter, I’ve had other aquatic adventures.

I’ve jumped off a 10 foot dock into a lake inlet. And off the top of a party barge into the middle of a different lake.

It was fun to take flight. And on scorching Texas summer afternoons, I dare say it was necessary to plunge into cooler waters.

Yet, both times, I failed to feel the exhilaration I did after I jumped off the 10 Meter. The apprehension was gone, but so was the rush of energy.

This was not because of differences in the height I jumped from. It was because of something far more fundamental.

My 10 Meter experience represented the first leap of faith I ever took. Quite literally.

I put myself in a position to do something both novel and uncomfortable. I felt the fear and I did it anyway.

I was better for the experience. I unlocked confidence and courage I didn’t realize I had before.

This confidence and courage came in handy months later, when I moved halfway across the country to a city I had never been to and started working in a field I had little experience in.

It helped me again years later, when I switched careers and moved to another new city without a job lined up.

And it has helped me in countless other, less-dramatic scenarios as well.

Feeling the fear and doing it anyway is a vital part of growing up.

For we will all encounter a new experience in our lives. Whether that starting a job, starting a family or starting to notice changes in our physical abilities. Or maybe even all three.

There’s no reference guide for these experiences. Sure, we can lean on the knowledge of those who’ve encountered these experiences before, but that won’t fully prepare us for what we feel in the moment.

We will feel apprehension —  if not abject terror — as we navigate these experiences firsthand for the first time. This is normal.

Yet, our ability to make it through the changes, and to grow from the experience, only comes if we’re willing to take a leap of faith. To feel the fear and do it anyway.

And that journey has to start somewhere.

Maybe not on the top of a 10 Meter dive tower, as mine did. But somewhere.

So, let us resolve to be bolder. To look out upon that new experience on the horizon that terrifies us and to face it head on.

Let us resolve to take a leap of faith.

Our future depends on it.

No Rest

I’m wide awake.

The dulcet tones of Katy Perry reverberated through the taxi as it pulled away from Chicago O’Hare Airport.

It was a chilly, rainy morning in early fall. One of those dreary days where a cup of Starbucks and Katy Perry on the radio would be a nice proxy for an alarm clock.

Yet, I had been awake for six hours already. I had caught two separate flights while traveling from Texas to Illinois to visit my sister. And I’d done all this on three hours of sleep.

Hearing I’m wide awake over and over again in that vehicle was like a cruel joke. I wasn’t having it.

No! I thought. I am NOT wide awake!

Yet, I soldiered through.

I survived the long ride to Evanston, where I rendezvoused with my sister — at the time a senior at Northwestern University. We then headed down to Chicago for some sightseeing, culminating our trek with dinner at my favorite restaurant.

It was a great day. A glorious day. Yet, my only ammunition to ward off exhaustion was iced coffee and a catnap.

So, by about 8:30 PM, I was toast. I passed out on my sister’s couch.

 

I think about this day often, for two reasons.

First, it ruined a perfectly good Katy Perry song.

Second, it encapsulates the past decade of my life.

I’ve kept my days busy. I’ve achieved a lot in a condensed period of time.

But what I’ve not done is get enough sleep.

This is partially due to logistics. Working an evening shift in my TV news days — and, years later, taking business school classes at night — meant I had to get used to jetting out of town at the crack of dawn when I wanted to travel.

This is partially due to necessity. I could tackle my tri-weekly two-mile outdoor run on a scorching Texas summer afternoon, I suppose. But running at dawn — when the heat is less oppressive — seems like a safer bet. And that requires getting up early.

And this is partially due to my nature. I’m a morning person who would rather be out and about than sleep in.

But regardless of the cause, all of it is an issue.

Don’t count the days. Make the days count.

Those powerful words come from the late Muhammad Ali. They’ve been quoted time and again.

But with great power comes great responsibility. And we’ve been using The Greatest’s words in vain.

Entrepreneurs — particularly those in Silicon Valley — invoke Ali when they treat sleeplessness as a badge of honor. The gig economy encourages millions of people to work 18 hours at a time. And many of us — including me — pack our days with activities, whether it’s a workday or not.

This is asinine.

We are humans, not machines.

We perform best when we’re most energized.

Yet, we only have a finite amount of energy. Energy that depletes over time and must be replenished.

Much as it takes time for our smartphones, laptops and other electronic devices to recharge, our bodies take time to replenish energy.

Traditional wisdom has said we need eight hours of uninterrupted rest. I’m lucky if I get six hours in an average night. Many others are even worse off than I am in this regard.

And no matter what some might say, we can’t make these hours up. Binge-sleeping doesn’t undo the damage of chronic exhaustion.

This is an issue. A major issue.

And motivational quotes about our productivity culture aren’t helping it one bit.

There is a prevailing narrative that as long as we’re awake, we’re capable of great things.

This is a myth.

When we’re exhausted, we’re compromised.

Sure, we’re able to see, to walk, to speak. But we’re also more easily agitated, more prone to error and a danger to ourselves and others.

Drowsy driving can be as devastating as drunk driving. And those heated late-night arguments with loved ones are extra vicious because our emotional control mechanisms are compromised

Even the toxic culture found at companies like Uber in recent years likely has roots in exhaustion. A company built on long days and sleepless nights doesn’t, by itself, spark misogyny. But the lingering corporate culture can spread acceptance system-wide.

Yes, there are profound dangers to our always-on culture.

Rapid advancements in technology might have made 24/7 commerce possible. And drinks supercharged with sugar and caffeine might have extended our daily time horizons.

But our bodies still rely on circadian rhythms. They’re in our nature.

We can try to innovate around this, but the results are inevitable. Inevitable and devastating.

As Dr. Malcolm says in Jurassic Park, Nature will always find a way.

So, what can we do to right ourselves?

It’s pretty simple. Commit to more sleep.

And while some might take this as an excuse to sleep in more, or work later shifts, I believe in the opposite.

I believe the answer lies in going to bed earlier and rising with the morning light.

For the sun is our ultimate guide. In the days before electricity and blackout shades, it had profound influence on our schedule.

Today — in the age of bars, nightclubs and late night TV — that pattern is reversed. We burn the midnight oil. We fight the sun, rather than work with it.

Getting back on the right track means getting attuned with nature.

And while I find this edict challenging as I balance a job and night classes, I am taking steps in the right direction.

I am committed to going to bed earlier on weekends, and on weekday evenings when I’m not in class. I even took a break in writing this article to get some shut-eye. At 10 PM on a Saturday when I had nothing on my schedule for the next day.

The result? I get my eight hours of sleep more often than I used to. And I wake up fully recharged more often as well.

We can all see benefits from following a policy like this one.

Sure, there will be sacrifices. No more midnight movies. No more taking advantage of cheap fare on red-eye flights.

But the benefits outweigh the costs.

Not only for us, but for everyone we come in contact with.

So, let’s do what we can to get the right amount of rest. Consistently.

That way, I’m wide awake can be more than a line in a Katy Perry song. It can be a universal reality.

On To China

When I was 10 years old, my parents did something crazy.

They took our family on a month-long trip to China.

Now, on the face of it, this might not sound so outlandish. People go on exotic vacations all the time. And China is an emergent tourist destination, filled with the capitalist façade of the western world — particularly in the years since it hosted the 2008 Olympics.

But this was in 1998. And it was the first trip outside the United States for both me and my sister, who was 7 at the time.

So, yeah. It was pretty crazy.

The unusual decision my parents made becomes more sensible with context.

When I was six months old, my parents hosted a young woman from the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia, who had emigrated to the U.S. with a Green Card. She became an integral part of our family, quickly gaining the honorary title of “Chinese sister.” She served as my babysitter initially, and later attended college in Vermont.

After graduation, she landed a position with JP Morgan in Hong Kong. Yet, she would make the long trek back to New York at least once a year to visit us.

After a few years, she approached my parents with a novel proposal. What it we all rendezvoused in China?

Hong Kong had been transferred from British to Chinese rule by then, enabling easier travel between the mainland and the territory. So, our Chinese sister could travel with us on much of our journey. She also offered to cover the round-trip plane tickets for my sister and myself — which was no small feat.

The plan was set. It was on to China.

In the weeks before our journey to the Far East, I felt anxious. I had only ventured outside of the Northeast twice, and one of those trips happened when I was too young to remember it. I had only been on an airplane a handful of times, and never for more than 6 hours. And I knew nothing of life outside of the U.S., aside from what I’d seen in a few movies.

My father tried to reassure me, but he was also brutally honest about what to expect. He said that instead of toilets, some Chinese restrooms just had holes in the ground to squat over. (This turned out to be true, but not on a wide scale.) He said that not everyone in China would understand English. (This was a massive understatement.) And he said many restaurants would not have forks. (This also turned out to be true, so we brought a reusable plastic silverware kit with us.)

All of this only exacerbated my anxiety, so I tried not to think about the trip until I was en route. That was probably for the best, because I had no idea what I was in for.

The journey started with a cross-country flight to San Francisco. After a day venturing around the City by the Bay, we got on a 2 AM flight to South Korea.

The Transpacific flight felt like an eternity. I stayed awake the entire time, watching the GPS tracker on the overhead TV screens and looking down at the clouds and the ocean below. By the time we landed in Seoul, I was exhausted. Yet, the morning sun was blinding, so I forced myself to stay awake after our subsequent flight to Beijing took off.

After a couple more hours of staring out an airplane window at the sea and sky, I heard an announcement from the captain asking us to prepare for landing. I was confused, because all I saw around us was a giant cloud. Surely, we couldn’t be about to land. Could we?

We descended through the cloud, and I heard the landing gear deploy. At the last second, the clouds cleared and I saw the runway come into view. We touched down safely and the plane taxied over to a dilapidated airport terminal.

Welcome to China.

I would soon learn that the cloud the airplane had descended through was no cloud at all. It was actually haze from China’s rampant pollution.

That haze never really subsided. During our week in Beijing, there was sunshine in the forecast on all but one day (when it rained). But I never saw blue skies. It just looked dreary and overcast.

I had never seen such thick pollution before. And I’ve yet to see it since.

But the haze was only the tip of the iceberg. After we got to the hotel from the airport, my sister and I took a nap. Suddenly, our mother woke us up, insisting that we go for an afternoon walk to adjust to the time change. It was on this walk that I noticed how different things looked.

There were no glass skyscrapers in our midst. The city buildings looked old and uniform. So did the vehicles roaming the massive boulevards, which were six lanes in each direction.

Crossing the street was an adventure, as drivers seemed to ignore traffic laws at will. We had to join a throng of people to cross some streets, and use underground pedestrian walkways to cross others.

I got the keen sense that we had not only traveled to a new land, but had also traveled back in time. There was a very 1950s feel about 1990s Beijing.

The subsequent days were full of misadventures. We took a Chinese tour bus for a day trip — even though no one on the bus spoke English, and none of us spoke Mandarin. I passed out from dehydration while climbing the Great Wall in the nearly 100 degree heat. And my father argued with a cab driver who didn’t start the meter on his taxi. It turns out the restaurant we were heading to was around the corner, and the taxi driver didn’t want to charge us what amounted to a 5 cent fare.

But ultimately, the strangest thing for me was posing for pictures with strangers. Many people in Beijing had not ever seen an American kid before. One by one, they asked my sister and I to pose for pictures with their children — some in broken English, others through the form of vehement gesturing that transcends language barriers. After a day of this, I felt like Mickey Mouse.

Beijing was an eye-opening experience for me. But there were plenty more surprises to come.

I have no idea what the typical tourist trail was in China in 1998, but I imagine it would include visits to Beijing, Shanghai and the Great Wall.

Our itinerary was different, for two main reasons.

First, we were obliged to travel to Inner Mongolia to meet our Chinese sister’s family.

Second, we had all grown fond of the Sesame Street movie Big Bird In China, in which the iconic bird with the obnoxious voice travels off the beaten path to explore China’s hidden beauty.

So, with these objectives in mind, we broke from the standard tourist script. Instead of boarding a flight to Shanghai, we took an overnight train to Inner Mongolia’s capital, Hohhot.

Hohhot was a prairie outpost compared to Beijing. Yet, in a nation of more than a billion people, even the smaller cities loomed large. Broad boulevards stretched for miles on end, the bike lanes as wide as the main lanes. And apartment buildings stretched as far as the eye could see.

Our Chinese sister’s parents lived in a modest apartment 15 minutes from the center of town. The apartment’s bathroom didn’t have a dedicated shower in the bathroom — just a shower head near the ceiling and a drain in the floor. So, we had to plan out when we were washing up, and when we were taking care of other business.

Sometimes, neither option was available. There were rolling power and water outages; electricity and water pressure were rarely functioning at the same time.

Some of these outages might have come from Hohhot’s daily afternoon thunderstorms, but I believe poor infrastructure played a role as well. After all, the preferred way to remove garbage in Hohhot was to put it in a neighbor’s backyard. That neighbor would then move it to another neighbor’s yard, and so on.

Behind the apartment, contractors worked day and night to build a massive new complex. In the week we were in Hohhot, these workers completed an entire floor. This amount of progress would be seemingly unthinkable back in the U.S., where construction projects seemed to languish for months in the 1990s.

Aside from these tidbits, my most vivid memory from our time in Inner Mongolia was our trip to the grasslands. We took a two-hour car ride into the most remote scenery I’ve ever encountered. Rolling, grassy pastures stretched out to the horizon in every direction, and there was nary a tree in sight. Puffy clouds dropped small shadows on parts of the landscape. Shadows that danced and drifted as the clouds moved across the sky.

We set up in a Yurt — a fortified Mongolian tent with an open roof — and then went on a long horseback ride across the grasslands. Unfortunately, I got heatstroke on the ride, and had to return to the Yurt to recuperate. I slept for 12 hours, missing the spectacle that evening when my father got drunk on a potent barley liquor.

I had never seen my father drunk before, so I was quite confused when I woke up the next morning and noticed he was not acting like himself. My mother alternated between taking care of him and tending to me. I was still feeling the effects of dehydration, so the car ride back to Hohhot was harrowing. But once we got back to the city, we found our form in short order.

Just in time, too. We had a train to catch.

Our next stop on our China tour was Datong. Home to iconic attractions, such as a cave filled with chiseled Buddha statues and a monastery suspended from a cliff, Datong was nonetheless the most backwater city we visited. The streets were barren of the shopping malls I’d seen in Beijing and Hohhot. There weren’t many restaurants. And our hotel was horrid.

Datong was very much a coal town. Dump trucks would barrel by me on the street, covering me in soot. It also seemed quite poor. Homeless people wearing soiled rags begged for change outside the train station, and some of the homeless were women with young children. I had never seen this level of poverty before. It was jarring.

After a few days in Datong, we took an overnight train to Xian. Home to the Terra Cotta warriors — a massive phalanx of porcelain soldiers an ancient emperor commissioned to protect him in the afterlife — Xian was the place where I discovered the phenomenon that is KFC in China. We paid the Colonel a visit so my sister and I could get a taste of home. But we quickly learned that finding a seat in the restaurant would be a difficult proposition. It was strange to see a fast-food joint so packed, but it was also refreshing to see how there was some food the Chinese and I both enjoyed.

Upon leaving Xian, we flew to Guilin in the southern part of the country. Guilin was perched along the winding Li River, surrounded by rice paddies in the shadow of scenic mountains with rounded tops. Big Bird had once visited this area. Now, we were seeing it with our own eyes.

As we cruised in a boat down the Li River to the village of Yangshao, I couldn’t help but think that the scenery was even more beautiful in person than it was on a VHS tape. For the first time in three weeks of travels, I felt comfortable and relaxed in the Far East.

Those happy vibes went away by dinnertime, however. As we sat at a sidewalk restaurant in Yangshao, I noticed that dog and snake were on the menu. I thought it might have been a bad translation to English at first. But then I noticed a caricature of a snake next to the snake dish, and a picture of Snoopy next to the dog item. This was no accident.

I had heard before that people in other countries eat dogs, but seeing it listed on the menu still rattled me. Frankly, it still does today.

Yet, aside from that issue, Guilin and Yangshao were among the more memorable segments of the trip for me. It was the point in the journey where I finally found some inner peace.

The final stop in our journey was Hong Kong. It was refreshing to hear English again, and to see a modern skyline. The weather was hot and steamy, but the city was picturesque, with skyscrapers and a mountain peak rising up from the harbor.

Since the elevation on Hong Kong Island changed so drastically, many people took a series of outdoor escalators from the high-rise apartments up the mountain to the Central Business District. We were staying in our Chinese sister’s apartment on the mountainside, so we rode the escalators right along with the natives when we went sightseeing.

Our time in Hong Kong was jam-packed with activities. We took a speedboat to the then-Portuguese colony of Macau for a day, had dinner on a floating restaurant on a boat anchored offshore, and made an ill-fated trip to an amusement park on a 102 degree day, among other things. All in all, it was the perfect way to end the trip.

As we took the long train ride back to the Hong Kong airport, I was filled with dread. I had come to enjoy my time in China, and was not looking forward to 18 more hours on a plane. Truthfully, I was no longer sure what was real and what was not anymore. Did my life before our trip to China exist? Or was it a figment of my imagination?

After a short flight to Seoul and a much longer flight to New York, I was back in America. The humid summer night air felt hauntingly familiar, everything looked the same as it did before we left. The skyline, the cars, our house, they were all the same as it had been a month before. If not for the pile of New York Times sports sections I’d asked my grandparents to collect for me while I was gone, there would be no sign I’d even left.

I was elated, overwhelmed and confused. I broke down and cried.

I have traveled abroad plenty in the years since our China trip, although I haven’t had my passport stamped for more than a decade now.

I’ve been to Europe and the Middle East. I’ve been to three countries in South America. And I’ve crossed the border to Canada and Mexico.

Yet, I have not returned to the Far East since that seminal journey in 1998.

I know China is far a different place now than it was then. South Korea and Japan, as well. Heading to Asia now would be an entirely different journey than it was before.

Maybe that’s why I have little desire to go.

You see, the trip to China impacted me in ways I can’t fully explain.

I recognized that the moment I came back home and started sobbing. The world hadn’t changed, but my understanding of it certainly had.

Despite all my anxiety about traveling, despite my refusal to eat many of the strange meals , despite my bouts with heatstroke and dehydration, the experience had been invaluable.

Seeing a starkly different place — one filled with poverty, polluted with coal dust and saddled with poor infrastructure — made me recognize just how fortunate I was to enjoy the trappings of American life. Even if those trappings were a blue sky overhead and an electric grid that worked 24-7.

The China of today isn’t saddled with many of the issues it once was. So my experience was as much one of time as it was of place.

I am keenly aware of this fact. And I am appreciative of the time I spent on the other side of the Pacific.

I wouldn’t have done what my parents did. If I were a parent in the 1990s, I wouldn’t have taken my kids to China for their maiden international voyage.

But looking back, I sure am glad they did.

Unselfish

There’s a poignant moment from my childhood that still resonates with me.

It comes from the early 1990s. I was 5 years old at the time.

My family had returned from our first extended vacation — several weeks camping up and down the coast of Maine. My aunt and uncle were over at our home to hear the stories of our travels and look at the pictures we took.

(Yes, it’s hard to imagine now. But in a time before smartphones and social media, these types of social engagements were commonplace.)

It was a beautiful late summer day, so we soon found ourselves in the backyard. We had a new wooden playset that had been installed earlier that year, and I hopped on the single swing anchored to one end of it.

For the next several minutes I laughed exuberantly as the swing went forward and backward. I felt the breeze as I went back and forth, our home getting closer and then drifting further away.

Soon enough, my sister — who was 2 at the time — asked if she could ride on the swing. I said no; I was having too much fun to give it up.

“Now, Dylan,” my uncle said. “Don’t be selfish. How about you give your sister a turn after 10 more turns of the swing?”

I agreed, and he gave the swing a push. Suddenly, I was flying back and forth, the swing taking a much wider track on its pendulum motion. I could feel the wind under my knees, and my jubilation was reinvigorated.

Now, there was no way I was getting off the swing.

Sure enough, after the 10 back and forth turns of the swing were up, my sister asked to ride the swing again.

Actually, it might have been after 15 turns — she had not yet mastered the art of counting.

But either way, when she asked, I once again refused to give her a turn.

My uncle was disgusted. He walked away from the swing set, exclaiming “That was mean, Dylan. You’re being selfish.”

And being the 5 year old brat I was, I responded by repeating the word selfish over and over. It’s as if I treated the term as a badge of honor.

After a few moments, I noticed that my aunt, my parents and my sister had left the playset area too. I was being abandoned for my bad behavior.

I hopped off the swing and went to join them, acting as if nothing had happened. Yet, my uncle continued to admonish me for being stubborn and selfish. He insisted I apologize to my sister for not sharing the swing set.

After a few moments, I did apologize. And that was the end of the incident.

The rift was closed, and we moved on with the afternoon.

Why, then, am I writing about this story more than a quarter century later?

Because that one moment forever changed my approach to life.

 

Selflessness is one of my most prominent qualities these days.

I make this claim not from a place of aspiration or ego. I base it instead off what others have said about me.

And while I’m not preoccupied with what others think of me, I will admit it’s humbling to see one of my core values being recognized.

In my career, my business school studies and my volunteer work, I’ve striven to put others first whenever possible. I might not be shipping off to remote villages in Africa to fix world hunger, but I also don’t spend every waking second looking out for #1.

My philosophy is simple: Help others succeed, and we all benefit.

As I’ve pointed out on Words of the West before, I don’t view the world as Zero Sum. The joy and success of those I care about reinvigorates me and brings me happiness in turn. Putting myself second to help them attain these results benefits everyone.

I did not always think this way. The swing set story makes that fact self-evident.

Yet, I can point to that incident as my spark for this movement. It was the moment I learned the true power and importance of selflessness.

Growing up, I idolized my uncle. I still do today.

My uncle is a renowned surgeon and researcher. His work has helped save the lives of many cancer-stricken patients. His commitment to training and teaching will help a new generation of surgeons and researchers save countless more lives.

These are accomplishments I will forever admire him for.

But back when I young, I admired my uncle for other reasons. He was in medical school back then, and he and my aunt didn’t have any kids of their own at the time. So, whenever we’d visit them — or they visited us — my uncle would spend a lot of time with me. It was an attention-seeking kid’s dream.

My uncle was even-keeled. He was cool and collected, not exuberant. Even so, he was fun to be around.

The last thing I wanted to do was let him down.

Yet, that summer afternoon on the swing set, that’s exactly what I did.

That was one of only two times I remember my uncle being visibly disappointed in me. (The other was when I stepped on a sharp shell at the beach as a teenager and blurted out a certain four-letter word.)

It stung.

I remember asking my parents what selfish meant that evening. And why that word upset my uncle so much.

It was then that my parents taught me about the importance of sharing. To be sure, they had told me about this several times before. But this was the first time it really sank in.

And from that day forth, I started to change.

I didn’t suddenly turn into a beacon of selflessness — I only was 5 years old, after all. But any time I did something self-serving and got called out for it, I would hear a voice in my mind. It was my uncle, saying “You’re being selfish.”

Step by step, year by year, I progressed toward my present-day mantra. I gradually came to see the value of helping others succeed, and I came to espouse it.

The funny thing? Even after transforming my outlook and reorienting my life, my uncle’s words from all those years ago still guide me.

Because truth be told, I still slip up a lot. There are plenty of times I find myself on the precipice of wholly self-serving decisions.

Whether the result of fatigue, multitasking or a lapse in judgement, I often find myself preparing to take an action that benefits me disproportionately at the expense of others.

Yet, when I’m on the brink of making a selfish mistake, my uncle’s words are there to save me.

You’re being selfish. Don’t be selfish.

They force me to pause and reevaluate. They encourage me to make a better decision. And for that I am thankful.

Yes, my uncle is a great man. He’s saved many lives, and the work he’s done will save many more. And in the smallest of ways, his timely words have helped to save mine.

I believe we can all benefit be being more selfless. I believe there’s an inherent advantage to putting others first and helping our communities thrive.

It’s less glamourous than pampering ourselves and basking in self-adulation. It flies in the face of the me-first zeitgeist sweeping across mass media and social media.

Yet, it builds stronger bonds with the people around us. It provides us the catharsis of making a tangible, positive difference. And most of all, it’s just the natural thing for us to do.

We’re meant to work for a cause bigger than ourselves. To build connections with the world around us and work toward a common goal.

Like the buffalo on the Plains from days gone by, there is strength in numbers. But this collective strength is only realized we take our ego out of the question and strive for a goal bigger than ourselves.

We might not be there yet. We might be the kid who refuses to give up the swing, as I once was.

But we can change. We can work at it, day by day. We can transform ourselves to meet an ideal truly worth our aspirations.

Let’s get to it.

Don’t Be Stupid

One of my favorite stories my father tells is of the time he first met his future father-in-law — my grandfather.

This took place in my mother’s childhood home in Queens, New York. The home was under the flightpath of LaGuardia Airport, and whenever my father heard a plane overhead, he would duck instinctively.

My grandparents and mother stared at him like he was from Mars each time this happened. Years of roaring jet engines overhead had numbed them to the sound of low flying planes.

Once my father adjusted to the engine noise, the conversation began in earnest. My grandfather — a longtime New York City Public School math teacher — asked my father what he planned on doing for a living.

My father, who was finishing up college at the time, said he hoped to work in advertising.

“That sounds alright,” said my grandfather. “But you should really think about teaching instead.”

He then listed off the benefits of the profession — steady pay, long summer vacations, union protection, and so on.

Eventually, the conversation moved to a new subject. But the exchange left an impression on my father. He would later say this was the first time he experienced my grandfather’s ethos:

You can do what you want and be stupid. Or you do it my way.

 

Even though this story happened before my time, I enjoy hearing it each time it’s told. I enjoyed telling it again just now.

It’s hard not to chuckle at the thought of my father ducking every few minutes as an airplane flew overhead. Or to smile when imagining my grandfather effectively saying Don’t be stupid… in a thick New York accent.

Sure, my grandfather didn’t say those exact words. But the message was very New York — blunt, edgy and filled with tough love.

Yet, the story also gives me pause — for several reasons.

For one thing, my father did eventually become a teacher. After working in advertising for 8 years, he grew to loathe the profession. So, he got a Master’s Degree and rebooted his career as an elementary school teacher. Fast forward 25 years, and he’s still teaching — although he’s “graduated” to middle school now. My grandfather’s words proved prophetic.

But more than anything, it’s the moral of the story that gets me. That heavy-handed message of Do the smart thing. Don’t be stupid.

It’s a message that fits symbiotically with its source.

My grandfather was a great man. But he was also a stubborn man who could be overly simplistic. His perspective on life was shaped by his experience living through the Great Depression, a world war and two heart attacks. However, that perspective often led to a My way or the highway approach to differing viewpoints.

It’s a bit cavalier to classify people in this way. And calling people who take a differing viewpoint stupid is downright reckless.

Yet, my grandfather was a man of principle. He was a man who stopped watching baseball for 40 years after his beloved Brooklyn Dodgers betrayed him by moving to Los Angeles. He was a man who made his own repairs in his home, rather than paying a professional to fix the issues that sprang up.

He knew his way worked. He saw it. He lived it. He believed in it.

So, in his view, the other way must have been stupid.

My grandfather had a major influence on my life. I idolized him. I’ve written about him before, and I’m sure I will again.

Yet, in the years since my grandfather’s passing, I’ve come to recognize I’m more and more like him. I have a similar wit, a similar love of storytelling, a similar frugality when it comes to money. And I even have some similar mannerisms.

What I don’t have is a penchant for calling people stupid when they take actions I wouldn’t.

At least, that’s what I thought.

Not long ago, I was driving down the road in a suburb of Dallas. Traffic was relatively light, and I was making good time when a car slowly turned from a side street into my lane, just ahead of me.

I slowed down to adjust to the newfound obstacle in front of me. But to my dismay, the driver never sped up. I tried to pass the car, but a stream of cars, trucks and SUVs in the adjacent lane blocked my path.

So, there I was, suddenly going 10 miles under the speed limit in the left lane, stuck behind a snail. At the rate I was going, I would hit every stoplight on the way to my destination.

My commute had gone from a breeze to a chore. I was less than enthused.

But that wasn’t even the worst of it.

The car in front of me wasn’t just going slowly. Its driver seemed to be brake checking me intermittently. I found myself slamming on the brakes at random times to avoid a collision, even though there was no traffic in front of my new vehicular nemesis.

My displeasure turned to exasperation. Was this driver texting? Were they lost? And why couldn’t they pull off the road to sort themselves out?

Finally, the driver signaled to turn. But instead of gliding into the turn lane, the driver slowed down to a near stop, while still in the left lane.

I lost it.

Behind my fortress of sheet metal and glass, I screamed You are such an idiot. Why don’t you stop being stupid and learn how to drive!

That’s when it hit me.

I call people stupid when they do something I don’t agree with. Just like my grandfather once did.

To be clear, many of us would be agitated if we found ourselves in the situation I just described.

It’s hard not to be miffed when someone else blatantly disregards the flow of traffic and drives erratically in front of you.

Yet, the actions of the driver who caused this consternation were not illegal by any means. Inconsiderate, sure. But not illegal.

So why did I jump to such rash conclusions about the driver’s intelligence? Was I being as stubborn and simplistic with my perspective as my grandfather had once been?

Perhaps.

But I don’t want to take back what I blurted out behind the wheel of my SUV that day. Not one bit.

There’s an ongoing revolt against the word stupid.

It’s a small skirmish in the greater war for Political Correctness that’s overtaking our society. But for a singular battle, Operation Eradicating Intelligence Insults has raged for quite a while.

I believe it started with the release of Forrest Gump in 1994 — a movie that showed the world how those with low IQ can still live extraordinary lives. As the 90s progressed, expanding diagnoses of autism and a crackdown on bullying helped encourage a softer touch.

By the time Millennials came of age, those who didn’t meet standards were no longer stupid. They were special.

And with that shift, stupid became just another S-word. A way to swear at those we despise, but solely in the context of name-calling.

Disagree with a politician? Say they’re stupid. Frustrated that your favorite team’s quarterback threw a game-ending interception? Call him stupid.

The word is nothing more than a form of catharsis these days.

But not to me.

I wasn’t calling the driver of the car in front of me stupid just to blow off steam.

Yes, I was mad. But if I solely wanted an outlet, I had saltier language to choose from.

No, the words I chose were quite intentional.

Just like my grandfather years before, I had a definition for stupidity. And this driver’s actions fit the bill.

In my view, stupidity constitutes inconsiderate actions that put one at a disadvantage.

The driver’s lack of awareness of the flow of traffic and constant brake checking certainly put me at a disadvantage that day. The term fit.

In my grandfather’s view, a plumber or a handyman in his home put him at a financial disadvantage. Why pay their fees when he could MacGyver it himself with PVC pipe and some duct tape?

And why fully support his future son-in-law’s plan to enter the advertising world from the get-go? That field was ripe with uncertainty — uncertainty he knew would put my father at a disadvantage. Better for him to go with the sure bet of teaching.

So, yes. I guess I do empathize with my grandfather’s simplistic perspectives and brazen style. It might not be politically correct, but it isn’t entirely self-serving either.

I believe that to heal our fractured society, we must all get comfortable understanding the concept of stupidity — similar to the form in which I’ve defined it.

We must identify its sources, call it out and eradicate it.

This starts with identifying inconsiderate actions, and recognizing the disadvantages they cause downstream.

It continues when we spread the word that these behaviors are detrimental to our society, and are un welcome.

These actions, in tandem, will spur conscientious-yet-aloof offenders to change their ways. To stop acting stupidly and causing unneeded problems.

And when enough of them do, it will cause a sea change in how we interact with each other.

If this sounds ambitious, it’s because it is.

But even if the end result seems far off, starting the process is well within our grasp.

Contrary to the old adage, stupidity is a fixable problem.

It’s about time we get to work on that solution.

Go Your Own Way

If you could distill the way you live your life into a single catchphrase, what would it be?

My catchphrase would channel my inner Fleetwood Mac, in four simple words.

Go Your Own Way.

I don’t choose those four words because I have illusions of grandeur. I don’t fancy myself a rebel or a rock star.

No. I choose them because of what they represent, on a fundamental level.

Namely, the ability to be an individual. To zig where others might zag. To forge my own destiny.

I have embraced this mantra for years. The path less chosen has consistently been mine.

When my high school classmates went off to prestigious universities in the Northeast, I moved to Miami for college. Palm trees and sunshine aside, my classmates largely looked down on my choice. But I wasn’t one to follow in their footsteps. So, I went my own way.

In college, I didn’t take on “safe” vocational studies. Instead of studying finance, law or medicine, I got a degree in Communication. Sure, the job market was larger for financial analysts, lawyers and doctors. But I didn’t see myself in those fields. (I am a writer, after all.) So, I went my own way.

After college, I sought out my first full-time job as a TV news producer. But I didn’t find it in Miami, or up north. I found it in a city I hardly knew anything about — Midland, Texas. So, I moved halfway across the country for a position with a salary similar to that of the cashiers at the local Walmart. Not many people — even in the media — would go such a distance for an anonymous off-camera position. But I did. I went my own way.

After three years in the news, I was burned out. So, I left my job without a new one lined up and moved 300 miles east to Dallas — another city where I only knew a few people. Starting over is daunting. Doing so willfully, with no safety net, is borderline ridiculous. Yet, I knew in my soul that this was the best path for me to take. I went my own way.

It would be easy to say I was being bold by making these against-the-grain decisions. But that would not be accurate. Truth is, I am intensely introverted, and about the furthest thing from impulsive.

Because of my nature, the choices I made felt excruciating. Opening myself up to change, risk and doubt was not something I took on gleefully.

Yes, the moves I made came after much soul-searching and quiet deliberation. They built upon the realization that what is difficult is often what is necessary. That the road most traveled might not be the best path for me.

I share this because there is a powerful lesson we can all take away from my experience.

That lesson? That following our heart and soul might mean straying from the pack. That being true to ourselves doesn’t always mean following the well-worn path.

Indeed, it’s often when we branch out that we find ourselves.

What we’re made of. And what we can make happen.

So, when you’re considering your next move, don’t be afraid to blaze your own trail.

Go your own way.