Category: Thoughts

The Paradox of Trust

A friendly face.

It’s a lifeline.

When we’re faced with novelty, a friendly face can make all the difference.

Friendly is familiar. And familiarity can cut through the jitters of uncertainty.

So, we seek out a friendly face at any opportunity. We seek to build a stable of people we can trust.

We believe that we’re setting ourselves up for success by doing this. But we could be booking a one-way ticket to trouble instead.

I’ve often been described as trustworthy.

Many times, I get this feedback directly. Sometimes I see it through the actions of others.

I take this accolade as an honor and a responsibility.

While it’s great to have others believe in me, I know I can’t rest on my laurels. I must work continually to validate that trust.

For trust is not a rubber stamp. It’s a contract.

If I fail to deliver on my end of that contract, it evaporates. I lose the goodwill of family, friends, and associates. And I end up hurt, perhaps irreparably.

And if I abuse the contract entirely — blatantly violating its terms for my own gain — it ignites. I lose the goodwill of family, friends, and associates when the truth comes to light. And they end up hurt, perhaps irreparably.

Yes, what builds us up can also tear us down.

And so, I am deliberate when it comes to trust. I strive to model trustworthy behavior, but I don’t overtly seek out the trust of others.

I simply put myself in a position to earn that label. And once I receive it from someone, I work extra hard to maintain it.

The stakes are too high to act otherwise.

Confidence artists.

We have a complicated relationship with them.

We love it when our favorite characters on the silver screen are putting on a ruse. But we loathe seeing such sequences play out in real life.

The gap between these two examples might seem stark. But they’re closer together than we might want to admit.

Whether it’s James Bond or Bernie Madoff, confidence artists draw from the same well — our sense of trustworthiness, and our unwillingness to question it.

And while it’s easy to trivialize those victimized by confidence schemes — labeling them as the naïve, the uber-rich, or the movie villains who had it coming — such dissonance misses the point.

All too often, we play fast and loose with the concept of trustworthiness. We hand over the keys to the Rolls Royce that is our life. And we just expect the valet in its charge not to go joyriding with it.

We hope that everyone’s better angels will shine through. But what if they don’t?

We have no contingency plan for the devil in our midst. We head out into the chaos of the world without an inch of armor. And the results are predictably tragic.

Perhaps it’s time to change the calculus.

My parents are both educators.

Ever since I was a child, they’ve been entrusted with the well-being of schoolchildren. During the busiest part of the day, they share a classroom – with no parents in sight.

This alone isn’t noteworthy. Or it shouldn’t be.

After all, the school system has been set up this way in America for two centuries. We entrust educators with our kids, no questions asked.

But recently, things have changed.

Revelations of physical abuse in the classroom by teachers have shattered any sense of trust. Schools have had to face tough questions about how they operate.

This has impacted my parents. They’re consummate professionals who have proven worthy of the trust bestowed upon them. But they now face a bevy of regulations and restrictions that impact how they teach.

There’s no question that these changes were needed. The old method of blind trust allowed predators to lie in plain sight, and plenty of lives were ruined in the balance.

Still, the current climate in classrooms isn’t exactly sustainable either. Education can’t happen in a trust vacuum, with all its mechanisms eroded away.

The solution lies somewhere in the middle, in the gray area between carte blanche and a surveillance state.

And it’s there, in the fog and the mist, where the path forward is so difficult to navigate.

Trust but verify.

Back when I worked in television news, I internalized these three words.

Speed was the name of the game. Getting the scoop, being the first to report — that meant everything.

But accuracy was the name of the game too. Putting the wrong information out there could get you in a boatload of trouble.

Choosing between these two edicts wasn’t an option. So, I went with the trust but verify approach.

Essentially, our news operation would implicitly trust the information we came across. But we’d still check with a second source to verify that intel, ensuring it was accurate.

This trust but verify approach speaks to the paradox of trust. We need it, but we can only rely on it so much.

There’s no true guidebook for this paradox. There’s no silver bullet that leverages the upside of trust without exposing us to those nasty downsides.

The best we can do is to approach the situation with eyes wide open. To lean into our vulnerability and to prepare ourselves for the worst outcomes.

We can do this by honoring the trust placed in us. Instead of taking this goodwill for granted, we can act to validate it day in and day out.

And when it comes to the trust we place in others, we can take our time. Instead of diving right in, we can verify that our faith is indeed justified.

On their own, these actions won’t mean much. Trust can still be broken. People can still get burned.

But as more and more of us follow these principles, those risks will diminish. We will bolster our faith in each other while working together to deliver the goods.

That’s a future we can all get behind. But it starts with our actions today.

So, let’s get started.

Rabbit Out of a Hat

What’s behind your ear?

The question perplexed me.

There wasn’t a thing back there. I was as sure of it as I was of anything.

And yet, my godfather seemed to believe otherwise. Why else would he ask?

So, with a healthy dose of caution, I replied Nothing.

Check again, said my godfather.

I ran my finger along the back of my ear, only to find a quarter nestled back there.

How did this happen? I thought, before realizing I’d blurted my question out loud.

Magic, my godfather replied.

Magic, I repeated to myself. Silently this time.

I should have been amazed. I should have been awestruck from the spectacle of the impossible becoming probable.

But instead, I was annoyed.

Not at my godfather. At myself.

How could I have let this happen? How could I have allowed a quarter to materialize behind my ears? How could I not be aware of my surroundings?

From then on, I was jaded. I wasn’t trying to find the secret behind the magic trick. I was attempting to avoid being the subject of it.

Still, it all looked the same to my godfather, or to anyone else I encountered seeking sorcery. My resistance, my denials — they were only inspiration to lean in harder, to create a bigger spectacle.

The tension built, and my dissatisfaction festered.

Even as I grew older, and the magicians chased after a new crowd, I remained unhinged. I once traveled to Disney World seeking to dispel the notion of Disney Magic. I scoured TV sets for trap doors and other funky shortcuts. And I built a healthy disdain for card games.

I was on a mission. Not only a mission to avoid being hoodwinked. But also a mission to end all hoodwinking, period.

As you might expect, this quest got me nowhere. I was as likely to put an end to sorcery as I was to stop the world from turning, particularly in the age of Harry Potter.

And yet, the mission wasn’t a complete waste. Far from it.

He sure pulled a rabbit out of a hat.

We’ve all likely heard that phrase a time or two — generally when something improbable has happened.

The rabbit in the hat routine is a magician’s staple. A spectacle of illusion so over-the-top that audience members can’t help but be filled with awe.

I’ve long loathed this trick. So much so that I grew a disdain for both rabbits and top hats.

But recently, all that has changed.

Not too long ago, my back was against the wall. I was hopelessly behind on assignments for work and an article for this publication. Time was short, commitments were high and the chances of me delivering were small.

My only hope was to put the hammer down and hope for the best. So, I did. And to my surprise, I got everything done ahead of the deadline.

I sure pulled a rabbit out of a hat there, I thought to myself. It’s simply amazing that I got all of that done so quickly.

That’s when it hit me. Magic is not about illusions and spells and distractions. It’s about speed.

It takes quick action to get our senses to deceive us. It takes quick action for quarters to appear behind our ears. It takes quick action for rabbits to emerge out of hats in broad daylight.

This speed is not a given. It takes talent, precision, and persistence to harness it. And those who manage to do so deserve a better fate than scorn and incredulity.

This whole time when I was hating on magic, I was missing the forest for the trees. I was blowing hot air at the grand spectacle, unaware that the real magic came from the shadows.

Yes, it’s the little things that can make the biggest difference.

As I thank back on that moment with my godfather and the quarter behind my ear, I’m filled with questions.

Not about the stunt itself. I know better than to ask a magician to divulge their tricks.

No, my questions are about my godfather himself. How was he so calm and casual while operating at warp speed?

It seemed completely out of character.

My godfather is a kind-hearted, deliberate man — someone likely to roll through a social outing with the steady rhythm of the incoming tide. But this whole turn to magic hit me like a thunderbolt.

Yes, my godfather had pulled his own rabbit out of his hat, trading out his whole demeanor in service of the illusion.

I might not have appreciated it then. But I sure appreciate it now.

Those who know me best know that I’m a fan of Malcolm Gladwell.

He’s made his living as a journalist and an author. But Gladwell made his name as one of our society’s great contrarian thinkers.

Gladwell takes what we view as gospel and flips it on its head. For instance, his renowned podcast series focuses on things overlooked and misunderstood.

Malcolm Gladwell is a master at pulling rabbits out of hats. At suspending our disbelief. At causing us to see the world just a bit differently.

And yet, it’s hardly smoke and mirrors. Rather than building an illusion, Gladwell is ripping down the curtain.

He surprises us, time and again. And through that process, we find ourselves delighted.

Perhaps more of us could take a page from Gladwell or my godfather. Perhaps we can focus on the process of pulling a rabbit out of a hat.

This doesn’t require a cape or a fancy catchphrase. It simply demands an unwavering curiosity, a willingness to sweat the small stuff, and the determination to see the task through.

In an ever-evolving world, these attributes are the keys to lasting success. But they can do so much more.

They can fill the gaps in our understanding. They can help us forge good habits. And they can make us better at all that we set out to accomplish.

So, let’s not get distracted by the bells and whistles. What lies beneath all that flash is what truly matters.

It’s time for us to harness it.

The Allotment of Time

I have all the time I the world.

This thought crossed my mind as I headed to the airport for a business trip.

The late-afternoon flight had essentially curtailed my workday. But I had time to make up the difference.

After all, my flight would take about two hours. I’d likely be at the gate for an hour more before boarding the plane. And once I landed ad my destination and made it to the hotel, I’d have an hour to tie up some last-minute work tasks. Easy peasy.

At least that’s what I thought.

But the flight was delayed. Then delayed again. Then moved to a different terminal. By the time I’d made it to my new gate, I had little time to boot up my computer and get anything substantive done. And the delay caused me to arrive at the hotel near midnight. No work nightcaps for me.

Add it all up — plus the time I had to stow my laptop for takeoff and landing — and four hours of asynchronous work time had been condensed into only one. Much of what I’d hoped to accomplish would have to wait for another day.

Time had gotten away from me.

My travel dilemma was not unique.

Indeed, there have been many other instances where I’ve misjudged how much time I’d have at my disposal.

This is not a failure of arithmetic. I have an MBA and spent three years producing evening television newscasts. I know my way around a math problem.

No, something deeper is at play here. My inability to probably allocate time is a failure of context.

You see, I consistently view time as finite. I see it as a set of 24 hourlong blocks that can be divvied up to meet the needs of the moment.

What I fail to consider are all the little complications that might eat away at that time. The moments spent walking from place to place, taking a bathroom break, or fielding an unexpected phone call.

These instances seem insignificant. And on their own, they might be.

But in aggregate, they can eat away at those blocks of time. They can wreck the most carefully laid plans.

They’ve laid waste to mine, time and again. But recently, I’ve tried to take control.

I’ve averaged out all those interruptions and run experiments from those findings. And all this work has led me to what I call the Rule of Three.

The Rule of Three dictates that I should split an open block of time into three parts. Two of those three parts should be dedicated to an inevitable slew of interruptions; I shouldn’t expect them to lead to productivity. But the third part can be devoted to completing substantive work.

This heuristic didn’t hold true when I got caught in travel limbo. I lost three quarters of my allotted time that day, not two-thirds.

But in general, it does hold water. And such knowledge has helped me navigate my day, set accurate deadlines, and even write my Words of the West articles.

Yes, the Rule of Three has been a game changer. But it doesn’t leave me feeling fulfilled.

For instead of thinking of what I accomplish during my productivity spurts, I’m left to consider the two-thirds that got away.

It’s my cross to bear.

This game I play — it’s hardly reasonable.

The clock might tick to a steady beat. The sun might rise and set at specific times each day. But few other elements of everyday life adhere to such precision.

Expecting perfection out of any aspect of life is a fool’s errand. I know this as well as anyone.

Yet, here I am, ruing any little blip that sets me off schedule. What gives?

Part of this is surely my own neurosis. My disdain for any semblance of laziness in my life causes me to account for every second of my day.

But a bigger part of this mindset is cultural. In fact, it’s a hallmark of our society.

Ever since the dawn of the industrial era, we’ve been encouraged to account for every minute. The transcontinental railroad gave us time zones and standardized clocks. Henry Ford gave us the assembly line and interchangeable parts. And the public education system gave us regimented schedules.

With each development, the message was clear. Time was not to be wasted.

Such ideals did have benefits. They helped America make the leap from a frontier nation to a superpower, and they created the playbook for a developed nation.

But the drawbacks have been just as stark. Skyrocketing instances of burnout, declines in quality control and the crushing weight of insecurity have all carried a heavy toll.

This system of extreme accountability asks more of us than we can reasonably expect to deliver on. It expects us to be machines, and to adhere to perfection. And that is something we can’t reasonably hold up to, either mentally or physiologically.

And so, we are destined to make a mess of time allotment. And we are bound to feel bad about it when it happens.

Our society wouldn’t have it any other way.

When I was a teenager, I’d often head to bed late. And in our family home, that meant one thing – I was responsible for turning off all the lights.

As I’d go through this process, I’d often find my father in his study, working under a solitary lamp.

My father – a schoolteacher – has always been a notorious procrastinator. He tends to start a dayslong project – such as grading papers or writing lesson plans – the night before it’s due.

I had no desire to follow the same path, so I played a little Jedi mind trick on myself. I would convince myself an assignment was due the day before it actually was, and then procrastinate leading up to my fake deadline.

This trick worked like a charm. I’d get my assignments in on time, every time. And my work would generally score high marks.

But now, I no longer have the same confidence in my technique. When pressed for a firm deadline on a project, I waffle.

Adulthood is complicated, with surprises at every turn. Calculating the Rule of Three on the fly is even tougher. Put both factors together, and I’m so overwhelmed that I’m tempted to shut down.

But I’m not a quitter. So, I try to overdeliver. I aim to get as much done in as little time as possible, knowing the odds are against me. And all too often, this process leaves me bitter and disappointed.

There’s a better way for me, and for all of us. So, it’s time for call it like it is.

We are human, and rigid time allocation processes are inhumane. We must give ourselves some slack to account for the variability of life. There is no other viable way forward.

So, from now on, I’m going to approach things differently. Instead of forecasting how much time I have at my disposal, I will simply strive to do my best and settle for what I accomplish.

This approach might not be sexy. But it should bring a balance of effectiveness and peace of mind.

And ultimately, that’s what matters.

On Special Teams

The kicker placed the ball on the tee, while his teammates lined up on either side of him.

The crowd in the stands waited anxiously.

The kicker took a few steps back, raised his arm, and ran toward the ball, booting it high in the air.

At the far end of the football field, a member of the opposing team caught the ball. He ran toward the sideline, with the kicker’s teammates in hot pursuit.

Suddenly the ball carrier broke free of the pack and strode toward the end zone. It took a last-ditch effort from the kicker to get him to the ground.

This sequence wasn’t ideal. It wasn’t going to end up on any coach’s highlight reel.

But it wasn’t calamitous either. The opposing team didn’t score. No damage was done.

At least, that’s the conventional wisdom.

Ask 12 people what they want, and you’ll get 16 different answers.

This adage has some truth to it, as we pride ourselves on our uniqueness.

And yet, there are times when we’re destined to be part of the pack. There are moments where our erstwhile individuality regresses to the mean.

Our fascination with David vs. Goliath is one of these areas.

It’s a story that many of us know so well. The diminutive David felling the mighty Goliath with a well-aimed slingshot.

David vs. Goliath introduces us to mismatches – how they appear to the naked eye and how they play out in real life. We love the characters in such a saga – the bastions of might and the plucky underdogs.

But our fascination can quickly devolve into obsession. We tend to view any matchup we come across as a David vs. Goliath contest — mostly because that’s what we want to see.

But such depictions are often inaccurate. In fact, many times, the combatants in these encounters are more evenly matched.

This is particularly true in the game of football. There might be some matchups at the youth, high school, or college level that end up lopsided. But the playing field is much more even when you get to the pros.

There are too many good players dispersed across the league for one team to dominate. Indeed, we’ve gone nearly two decades since a team won back-to-back Super Bowl championships.

This parity can sometimes yield great theater. Epic back-and-forth games. Entire fan bases holding their collective breath.

But all too often, it yields a slog. A slugfest between two evenly matched foes that is, for all intents and purposes, a draw.

When such stalemates take place, the smallest things can make all the difference. The bounce of the ball, the timing of a turnover, or the performance of special teams.

Special teams are the player units that handle possession changes. When the team kicks the ball off or punts it to the opposing team, the special teams unit is on the field. The same goes for field goal attempts and the extra points that follow touchdowns.

Special teams can seem mundane and technical — as forgettable as they are obligatory. And since special teams units spend so little time on the field, it’s tempting to explain away their flubs.

A near catastrophe might leave points off the scoreboard, or put the opponent in scoring position. But that might not really decide the game. The workhorse units – the offense and defense – can compensate for these shortcomings.

The same goes for special teams in other sports. A hockey team can win plenty of games even if it struggles on the power play. Soccer teams can still get results, even if their corner kicks are hopeless.

Those moments when the opponent has a player in the penalty box, or when a set play is drawn up – they don’t necessarily decide the game.

But they’re hardly insignificant.

Every morning starts the same way for me.

I get up, shave and brush my teeth. Then I make my bed.

Pulling the covers neatly into place, unruffling the sheets, straightening the pillows – this all might seem insignificant. If I waited until later in the day to take on this task, or if I failed to tackle it at all, my world wouldn’t fall apart.

And yet, I am determined not to leave home without a made bed every morning. Because there is no substitute for attention to detail.

I’ve come to recognize that the little things can make a big difference. That setting a good foundation, and preserving that bulwark, can drive sustained success.

Sure, the big ideas might grab the headlines. But the details allow them to see the light of day.

And yet, we seem to have forgotten this.

You see, it’s become fashionable these days to skip the fundamentals. To ignore the minutia and focus on solely on the big concepts.

I’m not sure where this movement came from. Perhaps its origins are tied to the recent tech boom, whose ethos states that we can innovate our way around every problem. Perhaps the growth of the attention economy is to blame.

Regardless, such lopsided focuses are hopelessly misguided.

We didn’t land a man on the moon simply by building a rocket. There was a team on the ground checking every detail at every step along the way.

Without that group, the men in the spacesuits wouldn’t have had a chance of setting foot on the moon. And without us focusing on the little things, we don’t have a chance of seeing success.

Special teams matter.

On a snowy winter night, the Green Bay Packers took the field for a home playoff game.

The Packers had earned the right to be here. They’d won the most games in their division and conference, earning them the right to host all playoff football games until the Super Bowl. They were led by the eventual league Most Valuable Player. And they sported a stingy and tenacious defense.

Yet, the Packers had a glaring weakness — an atrocious special teams unit.

That sequence described at the start of this article? It had happened to the Packers more than once over the course of the season. And yet, the Packers overcame those gaffes time after time.

But on this night, their good fortune would run out. Green Bay had a field goal blocked in the first half of the game. In the second half, the opposing team blocked a Packers punt, grabbed the ball, and ran into the end zone for a tying touchdown.

The other team would ultimately win the game on a field goal with time expiring. Green Bay didn’t have enough players on the field at the time of the play, giving them no chance of blocking the kick.

Had even one of these sequences gone right, the Packers would likely have moved on to the next round. But instead, their season ended in bitter disappointment.

It’s a sobering reminder that details are not trivial. That no part of the whole is truly insignificant. That special teams mean something.

It’s a message that should not fall on deaf ears.

Let’s learn from these misfortunes. Let’s be better about sweating the small stuff. Let’s not cast away the details in favor of glamour.

We have everything to gain from this shift in focus. It’s time we commit to it.

The Spiral of Doom

It was a treasured childhood ritual.

I would sit quietly while my grandfather regaled me with stories.

Sometimes, these would be fanciful tales, generated by his endless imagination. But more often they’d be full of truth.

My grandfather had plenty of material to work with. For he had seemingly seen it all.

He grew up in the throes of the Great Depression, enlisted in the Navy in World War II, and attended college on the GI Bill. His adult years were marked by the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement, and an inflation crisis. There were stories for just about all these events.

I cherished these tales because they gave me a window into history. The Berlin Wall fell in my lifetime, but I was too young to remember the occasion. And all the other crises had long ended before I was around. My grandfather’s stories were all that was left.

It was hard for me to imagine a world with such tumult. After all, the era I was experiencing firsthand was full of stability and prosperity.

And yet, I listened intently. For while it seemed unlikely that this turbulent history would repeat itself, there were plenty of lessons to be learned from it.

Fast forward a few decades. My grandfather no longer walks this earth. But his stories are still with me.

I’m especially thankful for that these days.

It’s no secret that the last couple of years have been difficult.

We’ve been saddled by a brutal pandemic, a battered economy, a contested presidential election, a racial reckoning, and a war in Europe. Nearly all the low points of the 20th century have reemerged in a singular period in the 21st.

Such a development has shattered our assumptions. We once believed that we had insulated ourselves from disease, political instability, financial strife, and strained race relations. We once believed that threats of nuclear war were off the table and that America’s global clout was assured.

No longer.

As we wade through these suddenly uncertain waters, we find ourselves asking the same question: How did we get here?

We were supposed to have protections against all that’s befallen us. Our technological capacity is far beyond what was imaginable even a generation ago. Medical breakthroughs have helped us manage ailments that were once devastating. We’re more enlightened — individually and collectively — than we were decades ago.

And yet, here we are again — finding ourselves blindsided as history repeats itself.

Such dissonance between intentions and outcomes can make us fatalistic. It can lead us to conclude that this spiral of doom is inevitable.

But such a conclusion misses the mark.

Globalization.

It’s a word that’s everywhere these days.

When times are good, globalization is the key to our expanded possibilities. When things are going poorly, it’s the scapegoat for our problems.

We act as if globalization is a newfangled concept. As if it’s something conjured up in recent years.

It’s anything but.

Known efforts to connect the world stretch back at least to the Roman Empire. And they likely go back far earlier.

The Roman Empire might not seem globalized to our modern eyes. After all, the Romans didn’t have international wire transfers, instantaneous news delivery, or asynchronous supply chains at their beck and call. But ultimately, that’s just window dressing.

Through systems, edicts, and innovations, the Romans made a mark on the affairs of the world. Some of their initiatives — such as a representative government, and networks of roads and utilities — were a net positive. Others — such as robust a system of slavery and rampant religious persecution — are viewed with disdain.

Both the good and the bad are marked in the annals of history. All that knowledge has been passed on through hundreds of generations. And much of it — whether exemplary or shameful — has been repeated, long after the fall of Caesar.

The wheels of history keep turning, for better or for worse.

Why do we believe that the bad outcomes of our past won’t reoccur in our future?

It is our belief in our own enlightenment? Our faith in innovation? Our investment in robust protection?

It doesn’t matter.

Truth be told, we cannot bypass the spiral of doom.

For part of what sends us forward is also what sends us backward. The two forces are inherently linked.

Forward momentum involves change. Yet, change is something we’re notoriously bad at dealing with.

As such, a series of missteps and bad outcomes are almost inevitable as the world moves forward.

Don’t believe me? Consider the 20th century.

The world took a massive leap forward in that time. But it was also roiled by a series of devastating events, from global wars to financial crises to a flu pandemic.

These events might seem disparate and random, but they’re interconnected.

A period of rapid industrialization at the turn of the century opened the door to new opportunities. But it also threatened the world order – which mostly consisted of empires at that time.

Such tensions led directly to World War I. And the mobilization of troops helped spread a nasty flu strain, intensifying the Spanish Flu Pandemic.

In the wake of that war, Germany was in shambles. A combination of punitive sanctions and hyperinflation left that nation open to far-right influences, spurring the rise of the Nazis and the horrors of the Holocaust.

After the Nazis were vanquished in World War II, tensions over how the fallen Reich would be divided ultimately led to the Cold War. And runaway defense spending — on both sides of the Iron Curtain — led to even more financial instability and the eventual end of the conflict.

These events played out over the course of eight decades, leading to a slow burn of misery. But despite that long timeline, there was little that could be done on the individual level to stop the carnage.

So yes, perhaps it was inevitable that we’d end up here — withstanding a hurricane of bad outcomes. But ultimately, that’s not what’s important.

What matters most — especially now — is how we respond.

Will we wave the white flag, and bury our heads in the sand? Or will we work toward building a brighter future, no matter the speed bumps that might lie in our way?

There really is only one sensible answer.

The spiral of doom is real. But it doesn’t have to define us.

Let’s not let it.

Foot off the Gas

The 200-meter dash.

It’s a spectacle of speed.

Contestants line up in starting blocks on the rounded edge of the track oval. When the gun goes off, they accelerate through the curve and then blaze their way down the straightaway.

The 200 is a forgiving race. Unlike the 100, it isn’t necessarily decided out of the blocks. The curve can equalize the field.

But the 200 can also be a defining race. So many track legends have found glory at that distance.

I’ve never run the 200 myself. After an ill-fated go at the 100 as a child, I moved on to cross-country in high school, and then distance races in adulthood.

And yet, I’ve found somewhat of a kinship with the 200 in my life. I tend to accelerate through the curve in whatever I pursue. And once I hit the straightaway, I turn on the jets.

This has been the case in multiple careers. It’s been true for me in college and graduate school. It’s even been evident with my running renaissance.

I’ve started cautiously in all these exploits, uncertain about what lay ahead. And yet, once the wheels started moving, I’ve picked up speed like a freight train.

I’ve added more and more responsibilities. I’ve filled up my schedule. And I’ve raised the level of devotion to my craft.

Such attributes are often lauded. Our society favors those who finish strong.

But what if I’m not finishing? What if the straightaway goes beyond the horizon?

Does the calculus change then?

There’s a lot of talk these days about burnout. And with good reason.

With all the changes in our world, the boundaries between our vocations and our personal lives have shifted.

If we’re being honest, there are no boundaries anymore. And this inability to recharge has effectively shut us down and boxed us in.

This is certainly a worrisome issue, worthy of our consideration. But so is its opposite number — the crash and burn.

We crash and burn when we wind ourselves up into knots. When we get out over our skis. When we set a pace we could never expect to sustain.

The crash and burn represents a cruel irony. Just when it looks like everything is firing on all cylinders, it all falls apart.

I’ve long been terrified of this outcome. My accelerant nature has made it a possibility — even a likelihood.

And yet, I’ve been unable to change course. I’ve found myself powerless to reduce the risk.

For taking my foot off the gas would welcome complacency to the equation. It would break the chain of everything I’d built. It would send me back in time, all the way to age 16.

In those days I was aimless. I was too timid to be a bad boy, but too unsure of myself to commit to excellence.

This all angered my mother, who saw my grades slipping and my motivation waning. One night, in a fit of exasperation, she called me lazy.

It could have been a label I just shook off. But, by the grace of God, I didn’t.

Being referred to as lazy lit a fire under me. A fire that’s burned for more than half my life. A fire that’s gotten me to where I am today.

There’s no way I could risk giving that up. I wouldn’t even dare give an inch.

At least that’s what I thought until recently.

It was a beautiful winter day in North Texas. One of those days you pine for during the searing heat of summer.

But I didn’t spend one-second basking in the sunshine. I stayed indoors all day, barely moving from my sofa.

Such do-nothing days are somewhat routine for many of us — particularly during a pandemic that has featured stay-at-home orders.

And yet, it was unheard of for me.

You see, for more than two years, I’d worn down my front door. Whether it was hot or cold outside, with blue skies or stormy ones, I’d walked or run at least a mile each day.

Somewhere in that process, I’d gotten a smartwatch. And I’d developed an unhealthy obsession with reaching the activity goals the device defined for me.

I’d reached them for 400 straight days when the sun came up on this winter day. And I’d decided the streak would not reach 401.

So, I sat the day out. And I took the next day — a workday — off from exercising as well.

I wish I could say that this forced siesta was relaxing. That it left me rejuvenated and prepared to take on what lay ahead.

But truth be told, I spent most of that time worrying about my first day back on the horse. Would I be able to bounce back now that I’d broken the chain?

As it turns out, my fears were unfounded. I was able to get back into the flow seamlessly after those two days off. It was as if the hiatus had never happened.

And with that revelation, two decades of my modus operandi went up in smoke.

There’s something remarkable that only the greatest basketball players possess.

It’s not the size or the freakish athleticism. It’s not their aptitude at shooting the ball while off-balance. It’s not even the ability to raise their game when the stakes are highest.

No, the greatest basketball players — from Michael Jordan to Kobe Bryant to LeBron James — they’ve been able to change speeds. They’ve had the ability to drive hard to the hoop or take things slow on the perimeter, depending on what the situation called for. Sometimes, they’ve even mixed both tactics to leave defenders in the dust.

These talents are awe-inspiring on the basketball court. But they needn’t be extraordinary off it.

As we navigate the marathon of life, we should alter our pace. We should maintain that burst as we sprint into new passions, vocations, or initiatives. But we should consider taking our foot off the gas now and then to preserve ourselves for the long haul.

This strategy is not without risks. There is a chance we could lose our momentum for good.

But the alternative is far riskier. We’re just not built for it.

So, let’s be bold, determined, and courageous. But let’s also be smart.

It will put us in a better position for success.

The Feasibility Gap

Successful people are simply those with successful habits.

These are the words of motivational speaker Brian Tracy.

I’m not a rabid follower of Tracy, Tony Robbins, or any other motivational speakers. But these words stick with me.

I’ve attributed much of the success I’ve enjoyed in my life to the habits I’ve built. Good fortune certainly played a role in the outcome, but good habits have put me in a better condition to capitalize on those strokes of luck.

Staying physically active has improved my overall health. Harboring curiosity has helped me grow within my profession. Embracing moments of reflection has made me a better writer. And devoting myself to cooking — rather than constantly ordering in — has provided fiscal and nutritional discipline.

Still, for all the good habits I have, there are some bad ones in there too.

I get hopelessly distracted on sunny weekend days, putting off tasks for hours as I daydream. I’ll often mindlessly watch sports on TV in the evening, rather than reading a book or cleaning my home. And I don’t get enough sleep.

The first two habits are somewhat trivial. But the third one is not.

As you’ve probably heard, we’re supposed to get about 8 hours of sleep a night. (The Mayo Clinic technically recommends 7 hours or more.) I don’t hit that number – just about ever.

If true success is a three-legged stool, I’m missing one leg. The physical fitness and mental acuity? They’re sharpened like steel blades. But the ability to recharge is sorely lacking.

What gives?

In a word, time.

It takes time to exercise our physical muscles, as well as our mental ones. It takes time to see to our nutrition, balance our finances, or put words on the page.

I happily devote much of my day to this. I’ll get up well before dawn to go running, and I’ll spend much of my evenings attending to writing, cooking, and other tasks. In between these times, I’m logging productive hours on the job.

This allotment of time helps me excel. But with only 24 hours in a day, it doesn’t leave me much room for shut-eye. I generally only get 5 to 6 hours of sleep a night — both on weeknights and weekends.

I know this is a problem. There are signs all over — the amount of caffeine I consume, the occasional moments when my mind goes blank.

And yet, I also know that fixing the issues requires tradeoffs. It would require me to take time away from my morning or evening routines. And that’s a sacrifice I’m not willing to make.

In my case, there’s no feasibility for the Mayo Clinic’s sleep ideals. So, I ignore them.

I bring up this example not to gloat or to throw shade on common advice. The Mayo Clinic is a reputable medical research organization. Its recommendations speak volumes and should be followed.

No, I bring all this up to illustrate that what’s ideal is not always realistic. And we are left to manage the misalignment.

I call this contradiction The Feasibility Gap. And it’s among the trickiest situations we must navigate.

The Feasibility Gap forces us to choose. To determine which desirable elements are non-negotiable, and which ones we can do without.

There is no roadmap to pilot us through these tradeoffs, and no silver lining for the decisions we ultimately make. The consequences are real, and they can be raw.

In my case, neglecting sleep occasionally affects my ability to function during the day. Over the long haul, my lack of recharge time could be a drag on my health. But those costs pale in comparison to the perceived benefits of an active lifestyle.

There are other contexts for this conundrum too.

For example, the perceived Holy Trinity of employment is finding a job that you love, that you’re good at and that compensates you well.

While checking all three boxes is the ideal, it rarely pans out that way in real life. The labor force is too competitive, interpersonal relations are too volatile and economics are too tricky for everyone to see this dream scenario.

Instead, we must reckon with what’s feasible, by determining which factors matter more than others.

Is our salary most important? Our job satisfaction? Our ability to perform at a high level?

Such determinations can vary from person to person. They can even vary with the same person over the course of time.

For example, I once valued passion for my profession and my job ability over my paycheck. But now, I value compensation and prowess over passion.

These value tradeoffs could leave me in a job that I don’t much care for. But I’m far more willing to deal with that possibility than I am to risk being underpaid or feeling in over my head.

There are no easy answers for these tradeoffs. But I’m confident about what I value most at work, in my lifestyle, and in a great many other places. They help me sleep soundly at night.

Even if I don’t sleep nearly enough.

There’s a narrative going around our society. One lionizing the idyllic lifestyle.

Everywhere we look, we see images of happy families in beautiful houses. The parents have ideal bodies, and they work in ideal professions. The kids are sporting ideal smiles.

Look at these images for long enough and we can get deluded. We can start thinking that success should come easily to us. That it should just flow.

This is, of course, not true. A lot of hard work factors into the equation. The glamour is a byproduct of the grit and grind.

But to get where we want to go, we must do more than give our best. We often must cross The Feasibility Gap. We must navigate uncertain waters and make tough choices.

In doing this, we will weave some rewards on the table. Just as I’ve sacrificed a full night’s sleep and the notion of making my passion my profession, we will need to reckon with real opportunity costs.

But in making these tough choices, in crossing this void, we will show courage. We will demonstrate character. And we will forge successful habits.

Isn’t that the goal in the first place?

On Bureaucracy

There’s a story my grandfather used to tell. One of my favorite tales of his.

My grandfather spent about three decades in the New York City Public School system. The school in Brooklyn that he taught at had an annex building that gradually fell into disrepair.

Plans were made to shore up one part of the building by repainting the exterior doors. But as this proposal made its way through the Board of Education’s financing and approval process, red tape smothered it. A simple process that Tom Sawyer once completed in an afternoon was left pending for years.

Eventually, the city decided to demolish the annex and use the land for something else. But a day before the wrecking ball was set to arrive, the repainting order was finally approved.

So, workers showed up at the now-vacant building, painted the doors, and left. The next morning, demolition crews knocked down those doors, along with the rest of the building.

A fresh coat of paint was effectively wasted.

My grandfather used this story to illustrate the woes of bureaucracy. Having served in the Navy and the public school system, my grandfather wasn’t opposed to government on principle. But in practice, he saw much to be desired.

I think many of us can relate. Whether we’ve had to wait hours to renew our driver’s license or we’ve had to jump through hoops to change information on a document, we’ve seen how bureaucracy can make mincemeat of our time and a mockery of common sense. We’ve been flustered, agitated, and inconvenienced. And yet, we’ve done nothing substantive about it.

Should we have?

As I’m writing this, something fascinating is going on up in Canada.

Protesters have been occupying the nation’s capital — Ottawa — for weeks. And some protesters have been blocking several key border arteries to the United States.

This movement — which was started by disgruntled truckers — has been exceedingly disruptive. Cross-border business has effectively been halted, traffic has been snarled, and the idyllic image of mild-mannered and polite Canadians has been shattered.

It’s clear that something is broken in the land of the maple leaf. Clear to everyone except the Canadian government, that is.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has responded to the crisis with derision, branding the protestors as a fringe group and telling them to go home. Others have labeled the blockade as a White Supremacist movement. And while neither statement is baseless, both seem to miss the point.

Canada is effectively a socialist democracy. Federal and provincial governments provide many services to Canadians — including healthcare, car insurance, and economic assistance — in return for tax dollars.

Such a system is not uncommon in the western world. In fact, the United Kingdom and many European nations follow the same practices as Canada.

These systems provide a sense of security, but they’re far from infallible.

For one thing, socialist democracies can lead to even more red tape than we experience in America. There are plenty of anecdotes from people who needed to wait months to schedule non-emergency medical appointments in Canada and Europe.

But, beyond that annoyance, these pseudo-socialist policies come with another implied cost. Namely, that of expanded government control.

The Canadian protests are a direct result of this toll. For the movement stands in opposition to many pandemic restrictions and mandates established by the government.

These restrictions were far from unique in origin. In fact, most countries instituted restrictions to protect public health as the COVID virus spread around the world.

And yet, Canada’s restrictions and requirements were notably stringent. They had to be so that the government could provide its sweeping services to residents from Newfoundland to the Yukon.

At first, most Canadians seemed to comply without complaint. After all, fear of the virus was rampant, and treatments were lacking. Plus, such measures seemed to keep COVID’s rampage in the True North from reaching the catastrophic levels found in the United States.

Yet, after roughly two years of this vice grip, the unified front has started to crumble. Vaccines, high-quality masks, and anti-viral pills are now available to combat the virus. But the government hasn’t budged on loosening restrictions.

Bureaucracy has once again failed to meet the moment. But this time, people aren’t going along with it.

Government is not the solution. It’s the problem.

So said former United States President Ronald Reagan when he was running for office.

Reagan was far from flawless during his time in the Oval Office. His trickle-down economic theory didn’t quite work, and the War on Drugs had racist undertones.

But Reagan is still one of my favorite presidents for two reasons. He effectively won the Cold War, and he brought the concept of small government to the big stage.

Reagan understood that a government’s best function was to lead through legislation at home and diplomacy abroad. He recognized that high-functioning governments were more protectors than providers.

This thinking ran against the grain. For on both sides of the Iron Curtain, governments had spent half a century operating as distribution businesses.

In the Soviet Union and other communist nations, central planning and state-owned enterprises had effectively replaced the corporate sector. And in the west, socialized programs and federally funded programs had governments considering their balance sheets in a whole new way.

These systems were meant to serve the greater good. But all too often, they ended up clunky and inefficient.

Business pedigree was simply not in government’s DNA. Corporate functions worked best in the purview of the free market, just like legislation decisions belonged in the halls of parliament.

Reagan recognized this. So, he sought to shift the state of influence.

As president, Reagan unwound the U.S. government from many of its prior functions. And in the process, he made the nation’s legislative machine more efficient.

Much of Reagan’s work has not stood the test of time. Few initiatives meet that mark in Washington.

But the legacy lives on.

The United States government is nimbler today than it was decades ago. Sure, the politics are fraught, and too many bills die on Capitol Hill. But we don’t have doors repainted the day before the building is torn down. We aren’t stuck with long-term restrictions on our lives, simply because the government can’t afford to take a financial loss on a service it provides.

So, while we have plenty to argue over these days, one thing should be clear. Bureaucracy doesn’t build momentum. It destroys it.

Let’s do what we can to avoid that bulldozer at all costs.

In a Rut

It was all so mundane.

The days were nothing more than a dull drumbeat. I’d wake up in mid-morning, run some errands, eat lunch, and head to work. Sometime close to midnight, I’d return home and go to bed — only to repeat the process the next day.

The banality of my schedule was to be expected. Indeed, a hallmark of adulthood is wading through the drudgery of repeated tasks.

But I didn’t have a regular adult life. I was a TV news producer in the middle of Texas Oil Country. My job and my life were full of novelty by design. Always never the same.

And yet, months into my role, the excitement had worn off. The monotony of my schedule dominated everything. And my job performance began to stagnate.

I was in a rut.

Now, this stagnation didn’t lead to disaster. My newscasts still hit the airwaves at 5 PM and 10 PM each day.

But behind the scenes, signs of my plateau were everywhere. I refused to listen to editorial suggestions, leading to a power struggle with a colleague on the assignments desk. I ultimately prevailed, but the experience scarred the entire newsroom.

Meanwhile, my inflexibility deprived our reporters of a chance to spread their journalistic wings. They were stuck covering the same depressing news stories day after day. “Hard news” was all that I left room for in my newscast.

It was a no-win situation for everyone.

Ultimately, it took an unforced error to snap me out of my malaise. A typo on one of my news scripts made the air, and someone threatened to sue the TV station over the blunder. I nearly lost my job.

I rebounded from this near catastrophe, rediscovering the novelty in my role. But the resurgence was short-lived.

A little more than a year after the news script gaffe, I left the news media — and Texas Oil Country —behind for good. That rut I’d gone through had put an end to my first career.

Years later, I found myself in another crisis of monotony. But this time, I hadn’t signed up for it.

The onset of a global pandemic effectively shut the world down. My office was closed. Travel was banned. And even trips to the grocery store seemed dystopian.

In an instant, my world had gotten much more insular.

At first, I was OK with this. After all, there was no cure for a proliferating virus, and we were still unclear on how it spread. Sacrificing life as we knew it in the name of safety seemed prudent.

But as the weeks dragged on, my morale dipped. I was doing the same few things day after day, all within a five-mile radius of my apartment. I hadn’t seen anyone I knew in months. And I felt increasingly trapped in a self-imposed prison, unwilling to accept the risks of exposure but unable to reckon with my diminished life.

I was in a rut once again.

I responded to this realization by doubling down on my routines. I focused even more intently on the activities I’d assigned myself during lockdown — exercising, cooking, and journaling. But even as I did this, I started to consider how things would look when the world opened again.

What would be possible? And how would those possibilities improve upon what I was doing before this scourge upended my life?

While the reality of a brighter future remained frustratingly far off, these questions kept me conscientious and motivated. And they helped me avoid languishing as the pandemic droned on.

The rut disappeared into the rearview, without collateral damage in its wake.

It’s easy to connect the dots between these two situations.

The first time I was in a rut, I didn’t handle it well. But I learned from those mistakes. And I didn’t repeat them the second time around.

Still, such generalizations miss a key point. Both times, I should have seen the rut coming, but didn’t.

This is not because I was blind. It’s because I was idealistic.

After years of hearing such advice as Follow your passion and Live to the fullest, I convinced myself that ruts didn’t exist. If I was doing what I loved, and living the way I wanted to, I would stay energized and fresh. Nothing would slow that down.

This couldn’t be further from the truth. We all fall into a rut from time to time. We need to be ready for this inevitability. And we need to know how to respond.

I mention all this because I’ve occasionally run into a rut with Words of the West. I knew this was a possibility when I started this publication years ago. And indeed, I’ve been confronted with the reality of it from time to time.

Putting my thoughts and reflections on the page is one of the joys of my life. Many weeks, the words just flow. But not always.

Sometimes, inspiration just isn’t there. Topics to write about are anything but top of mind. Motivation is lacking.

In these moments, everything seems to be telling me to pack it in. To take a break. To wait until the lightning bolt of inspiration strikes.

But I resist such urges. Instead, I experiment.

I consider the blandest themes for articles. I rethink my writing format. I change the time of the week when I put my words to paper.

It’s all up for grabs, except for one rule: I must publish whatever I come up with.

These experimental writing weeks rarely lead to Rembrandts. But they rekindle my sense of wonder. And through that wonder, I find the joy that had eluded me.

This is the key to getting out of a rut. The tactics matter less than the sensation they spark.

Finding that sensation is critical, no matter how many twists and turns it takes to get there. We have full license to be our most free, even when we feel as constrained as ever.

And that freedom? It can be a beautiful thing.

So, it’s time to change our perceptions of being in a rut. It’s not a problem. It’s an opportunity.

Act accordingly.

Market-Based Approaches

My house, my rules.

It’s the ultimate power move.

Many of us were subjected to this edict as we grew up. Our parents ruled the roost. And we had no choice but to comply.

I was no different.

I knew that I would need to finish my homework before I could watch television. And if it snowed, I’d need to shovel the sidewalk before making any snowmen.

It didn’t matter if I thought the rules were fair. They were final.

If I rose in protest, my pleas would be ignored. If I asked why the rules were the way they were, my parents would reply with Because I said so.

I was left with only two choices. I could obey. Or I could rebel and face the consequences.

I was a good kid, so I generally took the first approach. But plenty of my friends and classmates followed the second route, particularly as we all reached adolescence.

The rebelliousness forged conflict between my peers and their parents, just as their days under one roof were dwindling. With the freedom of adulthood nearly at hand, the whole situation seemed so pointless.

And yet, it was entirely predictable.

More than two centuries ago, a crisis played out on the shores of North America. A crisis that was essentially spurred by the words Because I said so.

The “parent” in this situation was the British crown. And the “children” were the residents of the American colonies.

The crisis centered on a plan to tax the colonists for such items as stamps and tea. The colonists reacted with rage, dumping chests of tea into the Boston Harbor.

The British reacted by passing a series of restrictive laws, known in the colonies as The Intolerable Acts. The colonists responded to this affront by declaring independence from Britain and winning the Revolutionary War that ensued.

The erstwhile colonists had done it. They’d freed themselves from the unilateral edicts of the British crown. And while the next steps remained uncertain, one thing was abundantly clear. My house, my rules was never going to fly.

The founding fathers took two steps to wipe out this option, for once and for all. They created a representative government, giving many Americans a say in the legislation they’d encounter. And they embraced an emerging economic model called capitalism to fuel the nation’s fortunes.

Many of the early theories of capitalism stemmed from the work of Scottish economist Adam Smith. In such publications as The Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations, Smith wrote of the “invisible hand” of the market defining patterns of prosperity.

As the leading intellectuals of the era parsed Smith’s work, they came up with a novel idea. Perhaps market-based approaches could efficiently govern society. The United States of America was among the first nations to put such a theory into practice.

Over the years, these twin tenets — free markets and a representative democracy — have become the core of the American ethos. They’ve proven that no matter the outcome, we have a chance, and we have a say.

Still, we tend to tire of this winning formula. We seek to cut through the red tape, to sidestep debate, and to avoid bipartisanship. We aim to rule with iron fists.

Even if it’s more trouble than it’s worth.

The mandate came at a moment of exasperation.

Nearly two years into a bruising pandemic, America seemed to be stuck in neutral. Many Americans had received a vaccine to protect them against a deadly virus, but many others had not. Progress in quashing COVID had waned.

Into this quagmire came a hand grenade, courtesy of the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (or OSHA). Employees at large businesses would need to get vaccinated or face twice-weekly COVID testing. Businesses that didn’t comply would face steep fines.

It was a bold move with noble intentions. But it was ultimately a futile one.

OSHA’s directive quickly met legal challenges, which wound their way through the courts. Eventually, the United States Supreme Court blocked the action, arguing that OSHA had overstepped its authority. It turns out that Because I said so wasn’t a valid justification for such a broad government directive.

The high court’s ruling left a vacuum of ambiguity. Should businesses enact their own vaccine mandates to help stamp out the virus? Was the entire matter now moot?

As the debate waged on, I thought back to a move one major corporation had made before OSHA drafted its ill-fated policy.

Delta Airlines had asked its employees to get the COVID vaccine. But if they refused, Delta would charge employees $200 per month. The airline justified the surcharge by stating that it would cover the financial risk unvaccinated employees would levy on the company. To hammer home the point, Delta pointed out that it was paying an average of $50,000 in medical bills for each of its employees who were hospitalized with COVID.

On its face, this directive seems like the ill-fated OSHA one. Yet, it didn’t face legal resistance —or just about any resistance, for that matter. In fact, 90 percent of Delta Airlines employees got vaccinated weeks before the policy even took effect.

Why such different outcomes? Well, Delta Airlines skillfully explained the reasoning for each facet of its directive. They gave employees a choice on how to proceed. And they relied on a market-based approach to get the vaccine-hesitant off the fence.

It all came down to a simple point. Decisions have consequences. And the more directly we feel those consequences, the more likely we are to change our behavior.

In a capitalist society, we’re most likely to feel the sting of consequence financially. So, if eschewing a vaccine helps us to potentially spread a devastating virus, we might face anger and ridicule, but not the medical bills of those we infect. But if the decision makes our wallets $200 lighter each month — while our bills and expenses remain the same — we’re more likely to change course.

I often wonder why we don’t take this approach more often when tackling the big problems our society faces. Instead of trying to herd people like cattle to the desired outcome, why don’t we let market-based approaches guide them there?

We would likely make more progress at staving off climate change with market-based approaches. We could speed up adoption of new technologies. And we could optimize the way we live work.

Sure, such an approach is not universal. Texas’ move to a market-based approach for electricity providers failed spectacularly when the state faced a massive winter storm. And such approaches threaten to exacerbate, rather than eradicate, patterns of pay inequity.

But those are the exceptions, not the rule. Market-based approaches belong in the conversation more broadly. Top-down directives do not.

So, let’s leave My house, my rules behind. Let’s stop acting on our authoritarian impulses. And let’s let the invisible hand take over.

We’ll be setting ourselves up for greater success.