Consolidated Options

It was darn near Pavlovian.

As the players jogged off the field and into the dugout, the fans in the stands focused their eyes on the scoreboard high above the right field wall.

It was cap shuffle time.

An image of a baseball appeared on the scoreboard. Then suddenly, a stylized baseball cap appeared, covering it up. Two identical-looking caps emerged on the big screen to flank it.

Music blared from the stadium speakers as the baseball caps shuffled around the screen. All the while, the fans tried to keep track of the cap with the ball underneath it.

Finally, the music stopped. The baseball caps froze in place across the scoreboard, the numbers 1, 2, and 3 displayed underneath them.

At the top of the screen, a question now appeared. Which cap has the ball?

There was a momentary pause. Then a murmur rose to a dim roar.

Two! Two! Two!

A few seconds later, the cap over the number 2 on the scoreboard lifted. The baseball re-appeared.

The crowd went wild.

The cap shuffle has long been a staple at ballparks.

It’s long proven to be a cost-effective way to keep fans engaged, even when the ballplayers are off the field. And it’s an easy contest to win.

Now, that’s not to say the shuffle is easy to follow. The scoreboard maneuvers can even flummox the fans with the keenest eyes and sharpest attention spans.

But those who lose the ball get a second chance. With only three options to choose from, guessing is simple. And the roar of the crowd can nudge those guesses into the educated column.

Indeed, I’ve rarely kept track of the winning cap when I’ve gone to the ballpark. I’ve guessed nearly every time. But I’ve rarely guessed wrong.

The wisdom of the crowd carried me through.

The cap shuffle is just a bit of amusement. No more. No less.

But it illustrates an entrenched element our society – The Rule of Three.

The Rule of Three is a principle that was first articulated by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in the 1970s. It states that most corners of commerce, there are only three significant competitors. Think Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors in the automotive space. Or Burger King, McDonald’s and Wendy’s in the fast-food sector.

The market might have started out with more competitors in these industries. But over time, those three frontrunners rose from the fray.

Such market domination has as much to do with human nature as business strategy. You see, our brains can only consider three to four options at a time. We simply cannot process a Big Six of automakers, fast-food proprietors, or nearly anything else.

But the Rule of Three only partially explains the world we live in. For while there might technically be three dominant options in just about any industry, only two of them tend to get the lion’s share of attention.

Consider soft drinks. In Texas, Dr Pepper is an immensely popular option. But once you leave the state, it’s barely relevant. Coca-Cola and Pepsi carry the mail.

The same is true in the world of computer operating systems. Linux is one of the top three options in that realm, but it doesn’t hold a candle to Apple and Microsoft.

Binary choice reigns supreme. For better or for worse.

The better refers to reliability for consumers, and a predictable revenue flow for providers. When there are only two dominant choices, each party knows what to expect.

But the worse feeds directly from those advantages. With so few dominant options, consumers must contend with the trappings of monopoly power – including higher prices and lower levels of innovation. And the main providers must contend with each other – leading to polarization and its associated ugliness.

Sound familiar?

Yes, American politics also follows the Rule of Three. Two parties have reigned supreme for generations, while a smattering of independent politicians have sat on the periphery. This dynamic has made rhetoric more extreme and consensus harder to come by with each passing year.

Representative democracy only seems to embody the most sinister corners of American existence. Elections feel like a choice for the least bad option.

And when those perceived least bad selections make it to the seat of power, precious little gets done. Accomplishments requires compromise. And compromise is a bridge too far.

This quagmire has proved demoralizing to many Americans. And the murmurs of their discontent have now risen to a dull roar.

Give us more choices, they say. Get rid of the two-party system.

It’s a seemingly sensible plea. But appearances can be deceiving.

What would a multi-party political scene look like?

We don’t have to dive into fantasyland to imagine this. Real world examples exist an ocean away.

Countries such as Germany, France, Israel, and Australia have relied on a parliamentary system for governance. That means citizens vote for parties, rather than individual politicians.

There are plenty of parties for voters to choose from, and diverse parliamentary bodies. To govern effectively in this environment, parties have traditionally formed coalitions with relatively like-minded legislators – offering a smidge of compromise in order to pool votes.

But recently, that strategy has become less of a sure thing. Voters in some of those nations have given fringe parties with extreme views a seat at the table. And traditional parties have focused on differentiating themselves in response.

Consensus has been harder to find. Coalitions have been fewer and further between. And government productivity has gone down.

The byproducts of this shift are far from pretty. Economies have stagnated. Protests have proliferated. And snap elections have become commonplace.

This is what politics would look like in America without the two-party system. But since voters select individual politicians in our nation, the dysfunction would be on another level.

Without compromise, coalitions, or consensus, bureaucracy could grind to a halt. With gridlock overwhelming funding deliberations, government shutdowns would be inevitable. Without a shared sense of accountability, dereliction of duty would weaken the nation.

Expansive choice is no panacea. Far from it.

It’s time we get used to that fact.

When I was young, my parents would ask me a question each evening.

Do you want one bedtime story, or two?

Bedtime was non-negotiable. But I still had some say over the proceedings.

I often went with the second choice. I’d listen intently to a rendition of one children’s book, then another. And by the end, I’d be down for the count.

I didn’t give this ritual much thought at the time. But I sure do now.

You see, I don’t have children of my own. But I know that kids can be a handful after the sun sets.

Crankiness, mania, hyperactivity – all are possible as youthful energy wanes. Children need their rest, but good luck getting them to acquiesce to it.

This is why my parents’ bedtime system was so brilliant. By consolidating options, they made the wind-down manageable for everyone. And they set me up for success.

I think the same is true for consolidated options in general. We might want more than Coca-Cola and Pepsi, or Republicans and Democrats. We may yearn to see 7 caps shuffling on the scoreboard.

But what we’ve got is manageable. What we’ve got is reliable. What we’ve got is familiar.

It might not work to our specifications. It might barely work at all. But it works.

And that’s no small thing.

Tragic Misconceptions

It was a jarring sight.

A Toyota sedan missing all four wheels. The disk-like rotors were fully exposed to the elements, as a small rock kept the rest of the chassis off the ground.

Some bad actors had stolen away with the tires and hubs in the dead of the night. An inner-city occurrence that was all too frequent.

Only this car wasn’t in the inner city. It was parallel parked along a tree lined street in a suburban neighborhood. My neighborhood.

Oh God, I mused as I passed the disabled vehicle. Am I safe here?

I thought back to a few nights earlier, when I’d taken an evening stroll on that same street. I don’t remember seeing the Toyota sedan parked there yet. But I don’t remember seeing much of anything at all.

You see, the streetlights were out in that area. The sidewalk was pitch black.

I wasn’t worried about criminals attacking at that moment. I was more concerned about tripping over a rogue tree branch or colliding with an aloof squirrel.

But now, I recognized the error of my ways.

I should have been more vigilant. I should have reported the extinguished streetlights – on that street and every other across the neighborhood. I should have been prepared to face down thugs on every corner.

Or maybe not.

The disabled car sat on that rock for a couple of weeks before it was towed away.

All the while, I scanned the neighborhood for other signs of mischief.

I started walking the neighborhood with a flashlight, protecting myself against a potential ambush. I perused postings on Ring and Nextdoor, looking for the patterns of local perpetrators. I pondered enrolling in a Concealed Carry course.

But trouble never came to my doorstep. Just like lightning, it only struck once.

This left me in a strange purgatory.

My neighborhood had proven to be about as safe after the wheel theft as it was before it. But that incident was too brazen to ignore. It had skewed my judgment.

No matter what the numbers stated, I could never truly feel safe there again.

Wrong place, wrong time.

It’s the predominant explanation for tragedy.

We do not tend to court misfortune. Yet, it sometimes finds us anyway — in the most random fashion possible.

There’s no way to truly rationalize these brutal occurrences. Wrong place, wrong time is all we have for an explanation.

But there’s a hidden implication in this statement. Namely, an acknowledgement that a right place and a right time exist somewhere else.

The quest for that somewhere else has served as our societal North Star for generations.

It has led us from colonial encampments to the wild frontier. It has led us back to the cities and then out to the suburbs. It has spurred innovation and infrastructure, but also White Flight and gentrification.

Yes, the legacy of the quest for somewhere else is a complicated one. For the world is not as straightforward as we’d like it to be. And the green grass on the other side of the fence is sure to turn brown once we trample all over it.

Our quest for utopia is a recipe for disaster. And yet, we commit ourselves to baking the cake.

We condemn the Southside, the South Bronx, and South Central. We exalt the fancy enclaves with the elite public schools and the well-heeled police forces.

We wrap ourselves in the illusion of safety. And when the veneer is stripped away, we feel the full weight of the betrayal. Just as I did when I saw the wheel-less Toyota sedan a mere 500 feet from where I lay my head at night.

It’s an insidious pattern. And we’re to blame for it.

Our society is obsessed with rankings.

We’re always eager to see how the football team we root for, the college we attended, or the price we paid for gasoline compares to the other options out there.

Fortunately, there are several organizations out there to satiate our list-mania. One of them is WalletHub.

The personal finance company is best known for its credit card recommendation tools. But it also publishes rankings of the safest cities in America.

WalletHub’s most recent annual edition released a few weeks before I sat down to write this article. So, naturally, I gave it a thorough read.

The first few cities didn’t lead to any raised eyebrow. They were in predominantly rural states that featured low populations.

But when I saw the city ranked #6 on the list, I gasped.

That city was Yonkers, New York.

While I’ve been a Texan for my entire adult life, I spent my childhood in Yonkers. I grew up in a decently-sized house with a front yard and a backyard — luxuries most residents of nearby New York City did not have.

The surrounding neighborhood was hilly, shaded by tall trees that dumped bushels of leaves every fall. The streets were quiet. The neighbors were too.

It had all the appearances of a nice place. But appearances can be deceiving.

When I was just 6 years old, someone stole my father’s car from right in front of our house. A few years later, a nearby home was burglarized. Shortly after that, someone drove across the front lawn of our across-the-street neighbor before plowing into a retaining wall.

It was all more than a bit unsetting.

I wanted to believe that my home was safe. That I didn’t have to worry when I closed my eyes at night.

But each time the blue police lights lit up our street, I doubted that premise. And each time my father installed an alarm system or trimmed the hedges a little lower, uncertainty proliferated.

I moved away from Yonkers many years ago. And my parents eventually sold my childhood home.

Several months after they left the city, a man in a parked car shot a Yonkers police officer approaching his vehicle. The officer’s partner returned fire, leading to an extended shootout. Terrified onlookers told news reporters that it felt like the wild west.

The whole incident took place on the same block where I grew up. If I were still there, I could have watched it unfold from my childhood bedroom.

Yet, despite that shooting and all the criminal activity I witnessed before it, Yonkers found its validation. Despite its star-crossed legacy as the site of the fire that killed Malcolm X’s widow, the arrest of the Son of Sam killer, and the early misdeeds of the rapper DMX, Yonkers was ultimately lauded as a beacon of safety.

What gives?

Signal and noise.

It’s the central paradox of statistics.

As we accumulate data, we yearn to find meaning in its patterns. But some of those associations ultimately don’t hold water. They’re the noise that the proven conclusions — the signal — must compete with.

The officer-involved shooting near my childhood home is a prime example of this. It spooked the neighborhood, no doubt. But it also was the first time in 30 years that a Yonkers Police Officer was shot in the line of duty.

In the grand scheme of things, it was not signal. It was noise.

The prior criminal incidents I witnessed on that block also fell into the noise column. While each was unnerving, they took place far too infrequently to cause real concern.

My childhood neighborhood, it seems, has long been a predominantly safe place. It just wasn’t perfectly safe.

The same can be said about my current neighborhood. And many others across our nation.

It’s that variance that gets me — that gets many of us.

Safety is such an existential need that we seize upon any sign of imperfection. One lapse is too many, and two is catastrophic.

But this trend is not feasible or productive. It leads us to overestimate bad outcomes and succumb to paranoia. It fosters tragic misconceptions of the places we frequent, and the people we share those places with.

We need to let go of those delusions, and to choose a more sustainable path instead. We need to recognize the risk of a wheel theft or a crash into a nearby retaining wall for what it is – low, not zero – and calibrate our responses accordingly. We need to stop casting out the good with the bad.

This will be an uncomfortable shift for many of us. Myself included.

But it’s a necessary one.

We will never find a true sense of security without making peace with our surroundings.

It’s starts with us. Let’s get to it.

The Only Way to It Is Through It

I’m just out for a morning run.

Those six words rolled through my mind like a ticker on a marquee. Each time my shies hit the pavement, I thought of them.

The absurdity wasn’t lost on me. All I had to do was look down at the number pinned to my shirt, or glance at the spectators on the sidewalk to know that this was no normal morning run.

It was a race. A half marathon, specifically.

I’d never run one of these before. And the unknown filled me with anxiety.

I worried that I’d run out of steam somewhere on the course. That I wouldn’t cross the finish line. That I’d make a fool of myself.

So, I let my mantra be my guide. I treated the race like it was a casual training run – one of the many I’d completed leading up to this moment. And I kept myself from getting overzealous.

The strategy seemed to work. As the chilly morning air hit my skin, I took stride after stride with little resistance. It felt as if I was floating on air.

In reality, I was running hard. And I was passing dozens of other runners on the course.

I started to catch onto this around the Mile 3 marker. So, I instinctively glanced at my watch.

The pace it showed astounded me.

There’s no way I can hold this for 10 more miles, I told myself.

But everything still felt so effortless. So, I resolved to try.

With each mile, my confidence grew. I’d entered the starting corral with a goal to complete this race in 1 hour and 40 minutes. But now, I was on pace to finish in under 1:30:00.

As I passed the Mile 12 marker, the digital clock read 1:22:42. A 90-minute finish was within reach, if I could hold on for another 1.1 miles.

I was giddy with excitement. And totally unprepared for what was to come.

I was about 500 feet past the Mile 12 marker when I first felt it.

A sharp, stabbing pain just below the side of my ribcage.

The air rushed out of my lungs in an instant. And as I inhaled, my right oblique tightened like a vice.

I knew exactly what this was. A side stitch.

The side stitch is the bane of any runner’s existence. I’d encountered my fair share when I’d first started running regularly. But they’d faded away as I’d gained fitness. I hadn’t encountered one in months.

But now it was back – at the worst possible time.

The easiest way to resolve a side stitch is to stop for a moment and stretch. I’d done this plenty of times in those early days of training.

But stopping wasn’t an option at mile 12 of the half marathon course. Not if I wanted to break the 1:30:00 barrier.

So, while still in motion, I gave myself a pep talk through strained breaths.

The only way to it is through it. Let’s go.

I winced as the course turned left, and then right. Each step felt excruciating. And I knew it would only get worse.

I was downtown now, running in the cavernous shadows of giant skyscrapers. The morning sun was in my eyes, blinding me through my racing sunglasses.

I had no idea how much of the course was still ahead of me. A half mile? A quarter mile?

As I scanned in vain for a street sign or a mile marker, I noticed some silhouettes darting through my peripherals. Other runners, passing me by.

I started to panic. Was I fading? Was my race coming undone?

Just hang on, I told myself. You’re almost there.

I passed the Mile 13 marker. And after what felt like an eternity, the finish line came into view.

I glided my way across the line and slowed to a walk. As I hobbled over to a barrier fence to stretch my oblique, I took a look around. Those silhouettes that had just passed me were hunched over, vomiting profusely.

I stared up at the race clock, and suddenly everything made sense.

I hadn’t faded. Those runners had just outsprinted me. All so that they could finish before the clock hit 1:30:00.

I’d missed that mark by 4 seconds. But I’d also persevered, fighting through immense pain and giving myself a chance at glory.

No matter what the clock read, I could hold my head high.

Back when I was a child, my father came back from work one day looking ragged.

Grass stains were all over his jeans, and dirt specks covered his shirt like a Jackson Pollock painting.

My mother asked what happened, and my father – then an elementary school teacher – explained that it had been Field Day.

Field day, of course, is a late spring ritual in schools across the country. A day when students and teachers ditch the classroom for structured activities outdoors.

One of the activities at my father’s school was a gauntlet run. Teachers got low to the ground and ran across the grass. And as they did, students lined up on both sides would whack at them with sticks.

It was an absurd annual tradition. But there was no avoiding it.

If my father wanted to maintain the respect of his students, he was going to have to make his way across the grass – dirt stains and stick whacks and all.

The only way to it was through it.

So, my father obliged. And he wore the evidence home for his family to see.

That image has stuck with me over the years.

My father’s decision, you see, ran counter to one of the great ironies of our society. That despite our bluster about grit and toughness, we tend to detour around challenges at every opportunity. To take the path of least resistance.

Calloused hands and battle scars are yesterday’s news. We’ve found a path to glory that doesn’t involve the spilling of guts. And we’ve turned it into a six-lane highway.

Gain without pain. It’s the ultimate life hack.

Or maybe not.

No, Easy Street might not be the panacea we portray it as. Accomplishments ring hollow when they’re dislodged from the principles of perseverance and sacrifice. We know only what we’ve gotten, not what it took.

If that last mile of my half marathon had felt the same as that first dozen, I’d be in the same boat as everyone else. The finisher’s medal around my neck would have been little more than an accessory. A reward barely earned.

But that last mile proved to be its own gauntlet. One that I faced head on, just like my father before me.

And because of that, the medal will always mean more.

The only way to it is through it.

I believe those words with all my heart. And for that, I am grateful.

Constants and Variables

His name was Glauber Contessoto.

Sporting wildly matted hair and a thick beard, he stood out from the crowd. Mostly because of his nickname – The Dogecoin Millionaire.

Contessoto, you see, had gone to the extreme with his investing strategy. He had stopped focusing on stocks, bonds, and savings to grow wealth. And he’d put his money into Dogecoin instead.

It was an odd strategy.

Dogecoin, you see, had started as a parody of the emerging Cryptocurrency trend. It was a tender sporting the image of a snarky Shiba Inu.

Much like hippies trading in beads, Dogecoin was not meant to be taken seriously by a wide audience. It was mostly a meme.

But Conessoto didn’t care. He was inspired by the potential of Cryptocurrency. And he went all.

His timing could not have been better. Contessoto’s $250,000 investment grew fourfold in roughly 70 days, making him an overnight millionaire.

This would have been a good time to cash out. To stash the winnings in a nest egg or reinvest them in traditional markets.

But Contessoto didn’t do that. He doubled down on his bet on Dogecoin. And he actively encouraged other investors to follow suit.

What followed next was all too predictable. Cryptocurrency markets saw a correction, and the value of Dogecoin started to plummet. The fall wasn’t quite as steep as the rise, but the tender ultimately lost 90% of its value.

It was enough to make a Dogecoin Millionaire suddenly worth only $100,000. Contessoto’s strategy had most certainly not paid off.

When I was a teenager, I’d often head to the convenience store down the street from school. I’d reach into my wallet for some allowance money, trading that cash for a newspaper and a bottle of Coca-Cola. And I’d stuff those items in my backpack.

I didn’t ride the bus in those days. So, when the last class of the day was over, I’d park myself somewhere in the lobby. I’d pull the brick-like cell phone out of my backpack, raise the antenna and dial my mother.

I’m ready for a ride home, I’d exclaim. Then, I’d put the phone back in my bag and pull out the newspaper and Coca-Cola. By the time my mother arrived, I’d read most of the articles and finished all of the soda.

These days, the waiting game is far less prevalent. I have my own vocation, my own transportation, my own living quarters.

And yet, I do occasionally find myself sitting in the lobby – waiting for a doctor’s appointment or to board a flight. Just like the old days, warding off boredom is my responsibility.

But instead of reaching into a bulky backpack for a newspaper and a bottle of soda, I now reach for my pocket. My mobile phone now fits there with ease. And it can do so much more than dial numbers.

Indeed, I can read news articles, schedule a dinner order, check the weather forecast, and even watch the ballgame – all from my phone screen. And if I need to buy something, I can do it with a tap of the device as well.

My smartphone is now one of the most essential accessories I have. Much of my daily life routes through its screen. And because of that, I always ensure it’s well protected, well maintained, and well charged.

This quantum leap in functionality hit the market in a flash. Apple released its first iPhone while I was still technically a teenager, and it contained many of the same capabilities back then as it does now.

I was only a handful of years removed from holding court in the school lobby back then. I probably could have ditched the newspaper for my phone screen.

But I didn’t.

You see, much like others, I was amazed by what Steve Jobs presented. But I was also disoriented by it.

What changes would I need to make to my daily habits with this new technology in hand? Which rituals would stay, and which would be usurped? How would I measure my own progress in the new normal?

These were tough questions without ready-made answers. So, I waited three years to get my first iPhone. And it took me three more years to cede my entertainment and commerce needs to its mighty screen.

Solve for X.

Those three words were prevalent in algebra class.

I’d long been accustomed to moving in straight lines with my studies. To memorize these facts, to read those chapters, to divide this by that.

Now, I was being asked to solve a mystery. To use the principles of arithmetic to determine what number the letter X represented.

I was annoyed at first. Why was I being asked to go through all this rigamarole? What purpose did it serve?

Perhaps sensing this frustration, my teacher gathered the class.

Algebra, the teacher stated, was not just about solving for x. It was about what X and the numbers around it stood for.

X represented a variable. Something that could be altered as circumstances shifted.

But the numbers around it? Those were constants. No matter what value X held, they would stay the same.

Deductive reasoning relied on both factors, my teacher explained. Change was an ongoing, volatile element of our world. But we could best understand its effects by holding something constant as we sought to isolate the variables.

This description continues to resonate today. In fact, it illustrates my slow adoption of the smartphone ecosystem.

You see, the iPhone might have been able to combine three pieces of technology – and one newspaper – from my arsenal instantly. But it would be a journey to get me there.

I’d need to weigh the changes against the constants to keep from getting lost. So, instead of trying everything at once, I’d adopt features one at a time.

So, my music listening habits would be the first to change, followed by my shopping habits, and my news reading ones. Such sequencing would allow me to systematically address each constant. To try each adaption on for size, and only proceed ahead when comfortable.

Moseying down the pool steps took longer than a cannonball off the diving board would have. But it served me well.

There’s a lot of clamoring these days about disruptive innovation, hot trends, and emergent opportunities. Futurists get plaudits. Nascent solutions get buzz. And figures like The Dogecoin Millionaire get rich.

It can seem as if leaning into the next big craze is the best way forward. As if changing all the variables at once is our only true path.

It’s not.

There is value in expanding our horizons, to be sure. But we’re more likely to maximize that value if we keep some constants in place along the journey.

This is the pattern of change we’re most comfortable with. It’s the pace of change that most fits our natural rhythms. And it’s the approach to change that best helps us hedge against risk.

This approach might not yield us new status, riches, or acclaim. But it will keep us from losing our ability to reason along the way.

And that is certainly a gift worth maintaining.

So next time you’re feeling the pressure to dive in, take a moment to consider the constants. And govern yourself accordingly.

Finite Resources

It was a restless night.

I tossed and turned repeatedly, failing to summon slumber.

I was away from home, lying atop a mattress that was too thin and too firm. And I was struggling to get comfortable.

Still, that only explained half of the issue.

For it was a sultry summer night. The air conditioner was going at full blast to combat the muggy conditions outside. But it had turned the guest bedroom into an icebox.

I’d covered myself with a blanket. But it was only so wide. And with each toss and turn, the blanket folded in on itself like a piece of origami.

As the night went on, I felt more and more of me freeze. First, my foot was exposed to the chilled air, then my lower leg, my arm, and my shoulder.

When it became unbearable, I’d shake the blanket free and toss it over my body. But a few tosses and turns later, it would be back to where it was. And I’d be cold again.

It was sometime around 2 AM when I realized the futility of my situation. The blanket was simply not built for my sleep patterns.

I wouldn’t be able to feel fully comfortable in this bed. Each movement I made would come with visceral tradeoffs.

These were the facts. I’d just have to live with them.

Not too long ago, I was watching a hockey game on television.

At a break in the action, a QR code appeared on the screen, promising a chance at a $10,000 grocery giveaway. The winner would get the reward in monthly sums over the course of the year.

I scanned the code and entered the contest. But my name was not picked.

Disappointment washed over me when I learned this news. But it quickly faded.

For I realized that I typically spend far less a month on groceries than the contest promised. And I could still pay for my smaller grocery haul with the plastic card in my pocket.

That card was tied to my bank account, whose balance swelled each time I got a paycheck from my employer.

So, even though this streaming service wasn’t subsidizing my food, I was covered. My employer was footing the bill.

Or not.

My employer, you see, wasn’t simply doling out money from a bottomless vault to keep me fed. It acquired those funds by selling its goods and services to others. Those others were businesses in the insurance industry, who used those goods and services to help provide coverage to consumers.

Many of those consumers were individuals, who covered the value of their homes and vehicles with monthly insurance premiums. The money paid toward these monthly premiums came from their own paychecks – which their employers provided after selling their own set of goods and services.

The dizzying chain I just described is work of the economy. It’s an illustration of the patterns of supply and demand that keep our capitalist society running.

The economy is what keeps us fed, housed, clothed, employed. It’s the engine that keeps us going.

That engine is fueled by two things – finite resources and market participation.

Finite resources mean there’s not enough of everything to go around. There are only so many loaves of bread, pairs of pants, or shiny new vehicles we can produce, for instance. And there’s only so much money we have to offer in exchange for them.

It’s as if we all have a blanket that’s too narrow. We can’t have it all, but we can make tradeoffs to improve our situation. We can participate in the marketplace – as buyers and sellers – to better fulfill our needs.

But if we get too close to the edge of the blanket, market participation breaks down. It becomes too difficult for companies to offer up enough goods, or too expensive for individuals to procure them.

Everything shuts down. And everyone suffers.

It’s an uncomfortable prospect. But one that’s all too real.

Follow the money.

Those three words are perhaps the most memorable of the 1976 film All The President’s Men.

Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein have seen their investigation run aground. What started as a story about a burglary has unfurled a broader government conspiracy. But Woodward and Bernstein can’t seem to connect the dots in a manner that is safe for print.

Eventually, Woodward and Bernstein contact a shadowy informant, who urges them to follow the money. This turns out to be the missing link in the investigation.

A trail of payments would ultimately tie the break-in to the administration of United States President Richard Nixon – who seemingly authorized the heist to get intel on his political rivals.

The Washington Post would soon publish its report on what came to be known as The Watergate Scandal. And it would ultimately cost Nixon the presidency.

Following the money is now a central tenet of investigative journalism. It has a way of exposing even the most covert activities.

But following the money can be illustrative outside the newsroom as well.

Indeed, in a world of finite resources and market participation, money speaks loudly. It telegraphs how everything is meant to play out. It provides a map through the chaos.

That is, if we’re willing to pay attention.

That hockey game I was watching – the one with the $10,000 grocery giveaway –was being aired on a new streaming service.

This new service promised to air nearly every game for my local team. All for free.

I was flabbergasted to see this claim.

You see, I’d hardly watched any of my local teams for free before. I’d either paid for a ticket to go to the game or paid for a subscription to watch game telecasts on a cable or streaming channel.

Football offered an exception to this rule. Networks like CBS, FOX, and NBC carried free game telecasts year after year, thanks to decades-old broadcast agreements.

But that was an anomaly.

Indeed, pro hockey seasons included nearly five times as many games as pro football seasons. And to remain solvent, hockey clubs have traditionally relied heavily on fans to pony up for viewing access.

I couldn’t imagine that financial model changing overnight. So, what would be filling that revenue hole for my local team now? If I wasn’t paying for my viewing access, who was?

As I write this, I’ve yet to figure those details out. Just as I’ve yet to determine who’s subsidizing the restrooms at shopping center I recently visited.

Those facilities were too clean and well-furnished for public access. Someone was paying to keep them pristine.

Yet, I continue to dig. On both counts.

Why? Because I know the score.

There are no free rides in the realm of finite resources. Even if someone else is footing the bill, I’m still paying for those game telecasts and fancy public restrooms somehow.

The more I understand this arrangement, the more sustainably I can avail myself of it. Without being abruptly left out in the cold when the blanket folds in on itself.

I’m not alone in this regard. We can all enjoy these benefits. That is, if we Author Dylan BrooksCategories ReflectionsPosted on

Non-Negotiables

The list was written in pen.

Scribblings of messy handwriting on a notepad.

The title? Non-Negotiables.

Carmen Berzatto – the co-owner of a fictional Chicago eatery – compiled this list early in the third season of the acclaimed television series The Bear.

In forming this list, “Chef Carmy” drew on his experience working at the finest restaurants on the planet. Those establishments got their Michelin stars thanks to their consistently exemplary dishes and exemplary service. But those plaudits were rooted in a fanatical devotion to house procedures.

Berzatto knew that accolades come with discipline. And he yearned to instill it in his refurbished establishment.

So, he outlined his non-negotiables and declared them law.

This all went over like a lead balloon. The staff found the new requirements tedious. The financiers found them unprofitable. And everyone found it insulting that they weren’t consulted.

They all ridiculed Berzatto’s work as the scribblings of a mad man. And they refused to comply.

The dysfunction from this spat put the restaurant’s viability in serious jeopardy. Characters who once got along found themselves at each other’s throats, or talking behind each other’s backs. All while the service quality withered on the vine.

It was a jarring turn from the earlier seasons of The Bear. And many viewers were uncomfortable with the show’s shift in tone.

But I was not one of them.

I was captivated.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been stubborn as a mule.

I fretted over the particulars of each aspect of my life since before I could even talk.

As a child, I clung to preferred patterns for dear life. And I refused to even consider a compromise.

Fortunately, my parents were up to the challenge. They prepared meals that suited my narrow tastes. They moved heaven and earth to procure the Matchbox Cars I obsessed over. And, whenever I spent an overnight away, they packed the ragged sheepskin I slept on inside my travel bag.

As each year passed, I grew in knowledge and stature. Yet, I refused to budge on my non-negotiables.

This all came to a head one New Year’s Eve. A snowstorm had roared through the area, and I’d grown bored of sitting around at home.

I begged my parents to drive me across town to my grandparents’ house. My father hesitated, noting that the roads were slick and filled with drunk drivers.

But I was stubborn and insistent. I refused to take no for an answer.

So, my father relented to the treacherous journey.

We headed onto the highway, over a long bridge and through slushy side streets until we reached my grandparents’ front door.

As we arrived, my mood brightened noticeably. My non-negotiables had been honored.

But by the next morning, I came to realize the error of my ways.

My grandparents hadn’t stocked the fridge with my favorite breakfast foods, and it was still too dicey out to venture to the grocery store. Other out-of-home activities were also a no-go due to the weather and the holiday.

I was back at Square One. Stuck in a house with not much to do. Only, this wasn’t even my house.

The universe had conspired to shred my non-negotiables. To demand compromise from stubbornness.

And I could avoid that fate no longer.

I wish I could call that snowy New Years Eve a true inflection point.

The moment when I went from a high-strung boy to an open-minded young man.

But that’s not quite what happened.

In the years that followed, I remained as stubborn as a mule. But if my demands were truly infeasible, I would call an audible.

No longer would I trek across town during a holiday snowstorm. No longer would I starve myself if a restaurant was out of my favorite dish.

I was cautiously flexible. But only when I absolutely needed to be.

As such, it took a long time for me to evolve. To embrace the unfamiliar. And to acquiesce to the requests of others.

This still hasn’t fully happened. I’m well into adulthood, and my non-negotiables list remains quite long.

But I’m committed to whittling it down. And I’m working at it.

Partway through The Godfather, a group of men hold court at a long table in a hotel conference room.

The men are all outfitted in sharp suits that belie their aging features. They fill their cups with water, load their plates with grapes, and puff smoke from their cigars.

They seem alike, but they do not like each other.

You see, the men at this table head up the Five Families of the New York Mafia. They’ve been engaged in a turf war for months. But now, they’re trying diplomacy.

Don Vito Corleone – one of the film’s main characters – proposes a truce, leaving territories and trades the way they were before the bloodshed. But the other mob bosses object.

They claim that Corleone has hoarded all the corruptible politicians in New York, leaving them with no cover for illicit activities. And they state a desire to add drug trafficking to their racket – an activity Corleone staunchly opposes.

The discussion looks like a dead end at first. But the men keep talking, and eventually come to an agreement.

The Five Families can move forward with drug trafficking, but with strict rules of operation. And Corleone will cede some of his political protection to the rival bosses.

No one gets exactly what they wanted. But the bloodshed ends, and everyone is better off. Even if only for a moment.

It’s been more than a half century since The Godfather hit movie theaters. But this scene seems more important than ever.

For in our modern-day society, me has won out over we. Unilateralism is omnipresent. Cults of personality are stronger than ever.

It’s easy to draft a non-negotiables list and clobber others over the head with it. It’s acceptable to be as stubborn to a fault. It’s laudable to invite conflict and to never back down.

But it’s reasonable to do none of these things.

Indeed, the best path forward is paved in compromise. In giving up a bit of what we hold dear to gain a lot more.

This makes us more considerate, more palatable, and more well-rounded. This makes us better, while also lifting those around us up.

It’s a win all around.

So, let’s make the shift. Let’s reconsider what we won’t consider. And let’s leave the mule train behind for good.

The non-negotiables are open for negotiation. It’s our move.

Next Play

Onward and Upward.

My advisor ended her email with those three words.

She was replying to an apology email I’d drafted. One where I’d wholeheartedly taken the blame for a televised meltdown.

I wasn’t on the air having a viral moment. I was helping behind the scenes on a college TV newscast.

But the activity off-camera was hopelessly chaotic, and the broadcast had turned visibly turbulent.

I took this all personally. I felt that if I did my job better, everything would have fallen in line.

And so, I typed up that apology. And I hit Send.

My advisor wasn’t having it. She reminded me that we’d all played a hand in the fiasco, and that falling on the sword did no one any good. The best thing to do was to turn the page.

That’s what those last three words were meant to refer to. But they turned into so much more.

Football is a game with a staccato rhythm.

The offense huddles up. Then the players move to where the referee is holding the ball, flanking the width of the field in the process.

Defensive players stare into their eyes from inches away. It’s eerily still for a moment.

And then it isn’t.

The ball is snapped backwards. Burly linemen collide where the ball once was. Offensive playmakers run in various directions, hoping to help advance the ball. Defensive playmakers seek to stop them in their tracks.

A few seconds later, the action ends. The referee blows their whistle. And the offense huddles up again.

Each of these sequences is called a play. And in an average pro football game, there are 153 of them.

All those stops and starts can be a lot to take in, particularly for the novice fans in the stands.

But for the combatants on the field, they’re best encapsulated in two words.

Next play.

If you tune out the roar of the crowd, you might hear the captains on the field barking that mantra. Or maybe the coaches on the sideline.

What happened on the last sequence only matters so much. The next play offers a clean slate, a fresh opportunity. If the team is ready to seize it.

This thinking extends to other elements of the game as well.

Football is a violent sport, and injuries are all too common. When they occur, teammates will often take a knee, and maybe give the felled player a light pat on the shoulder as he is helped to the sideline.

But there is no more time to wallow in despair. There’s still a game to be won.

So, the captains and coaches will often bark Next man up. Next play.

Another player comes into the game, in place of their injured teammate. And the contest goes on as if nothing had happened.

It’s all so crude. And it’s all so real.

My advisor was not a football coach. She was a media professor.

And yet, something in those three words at the end of her email lit a fire under me.

Onward and upward had me ready to don my helmet, buckle my chinstrap, and charge into the fray.

Not in football. In life.

You see, up until that moment, I’d viewed my actions as cumulative. Everything I’d done would impact what I did next. The book on me had already been written, and all I was doing was adding words to the page.

To a certain degree, this philosophy made sense. I’d spent 18 years under the watchful eyes of my parents and another four on a college campus. Grade point averages, course credit accumulations, and internship assessments were my only guideposts to success.

But the weight of that legacy was starting to hinder me. I’d become cautious and tentative to a fault. With each small stumble, I retreated further into a spiral of fear and doubt.

And now, I’d stepped in it bigtime. I’d put something terrible on the air. The putrid evidence had beamed into television sets and landed on tape.

I was doomed.

But those words from my advisor changed everything.

They cast the next newscast as a fresh opportunity, clear of the baggage of the prior debacle.

And the concept didn’t end there.

The next adviser conversation, the next assignment, the next experience I faced – in the classroom or out of it – would offer a similar chance to cast a new narrative. All I would need to do is compartmentalize.

I got the message loud and clear.

Not long after reading my advisor’s email, I headed to class.

I had an exam in that course that day. And as I turned in the test paper to the proctor, I wasn’t quite confident I’d aced it.

By the time I made my way into the hallway, doubt had taken over my mind. I was second-guessing all my answers, my preparation, and even my self-worth.

But then I thought about the email, and those final few words.

Next play, I told myself. And I put the exam out of my mind.

Something similar happened when I slightly flubbed an assignment at my internship the next day. And when I put a typo in the script for a volunteer sportscast at the end of the week.

Both mishaps were unfortunate. But there was no need to make them catastrophic. So, I didn’t.

Next play, I reminded myself. Keep going.

I could feel the change in me. I was bolder, more productive, and more resilient. People were starting to feed off my positive energy, and I felt inspired by their belief in me.

It was a virtuous cycle, all fed from a shift in mindset.

Eventually, I graduated and left that college campus behind. But the next play mentality has stayed with me.

It’s guided me through a career in the news media, and a much longer stint in marketing. It’s steadied my hand as a writer, allowing me to publish a new article here on Ember Trace each week for nearly a decade. It’s helped me improve my craft at cooking and achieve great things as a competitive runner.

So much of my success comes from leaving my failings behind. By focusing on the challenge to come rather than dwelling on what could have been.

It’s a lesson that’s salient for anyone. But in my case, it was lifechanging.

So, I’m eternally grateful to my college advisor for guiding the way. And I thank my lucky stars that I took a moment to listen to that guidance.

Next play. Onward and upward. Keep going.

Power Dynamics

As I stared at my phone’s home screen, frustration washed over my face.

The neat grid of app icons I’d perused just hours earlier was now an imperceptible mess.

I had updated the phone’s operating system overnight. And the new OS seemed to have put all the app icons in dark mode.

The white space on each app tile was now a dark gray. And the app icons were now a faded array of colors. This made the apps for Ford, AT&T, Venmo, Garmin and The Weather Channel appear interchangeable.

This was a first world problem of the highest order. But it was still a problem.

Indeed, I felt as lost navigating the screen at 6 AM as I had at 1 AM, when I’d stumbled to the kitchen for a glass of water. I knew the general direction of where I was headed, but getting there required a lot of squinting and some tentative movements.

This had to stop.

I turned to the phone settings screen and tried to revert the darkened icons. But this turned off dark mode entirely — making all the apps on my phone blindingly bright and draining the phone’s battery in the process. I rolled back that change quickly.

I thought about complaining to Apple, who was behind this phone update. Hey, maybe don’t tether dark mode to the app icons, or at least let us opt out of that view.

But I knew better.

This was Apple, after all. The company which once had Think Differently as it’s tagline. The poster child of the closed ecosystem.

Apple wasn’t going to make it easy for me to file a consumer complaint. And even if I persisted, they weren’t likely to take that complaint into account.

The power dynamics were not in my favor.

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.

Such were the musings of Henry Ford. While it’s uncertain if he said these words verbatim, there’s no doubt that he thought along these lines.

Ford came of age in the first era of capitalism. Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations had been published in 1776, and it placed market dynamics front and center.

Without demand, Smith stated, there would be no impetus to create goods. And without those goods to sell, there would be no commerce.

Smith called the combination of these forces The Invisible Hand. And the term soon became ubiquitous.

The United States had also come to be in 1776. And as it established its economy, it deferred heavily to the power of consumer demand.

There was a heavy focus on producing items that the populace had expressed a need for. And on bringing those items to market at a fair price.

It was The Invisible Hand in action.

Innovation had trickled into the fold over the ensuing decades. But such efforts mostly focused on efficiency of production, or the quality of finished materials.

The machines in east coast textile mills helped turn more cotton, silk, or wool into clothing each day. The steel from Andrew Carnegie’s foundries helped build taller buildings and sturdier bridges.

The transportation needs of the people wearing that clothing and crossing those bridges to get from building to building? Those were accounted for by horses, steamships and railroads.

Those were the methods consumers used. As such, those would remain the areas of focus for businesses in the market.

Until Henry Ford turned the whole system on its head.

Ford had a grand vision for the automobile. The motorized wagon had cropped up in Europe, and it had recently found its way to America. Still, it was mostly a novelty for the rich, with no sign of widespread demand.

Ignoring these headwinds, Ford set out to create a reliable vehicle – the Model T. Then he rolled out new production techniques to assemble that vehicle at scale. He offered the vehicle at an appealing price point. All while unleashing messaging sure to spur interest.

Ford’s efforts ushered in the age of the automobile. Horse-drawn travel faded away. Suburbs became viable. The road trip became a thing.

And the second era of capitalism found its spark.

By succeeding with something the market hadn’t asked for, Henry Ford had usurped control.

No longer were consumers pulling the strings. Ford was the one who knew best what was needed. And he ran his company accordingly.

Consumers didn’t always like this, and some did voice their complaints. But as the automobile fast became ubiquitous, those complaints mostly fell on deaf ears.

The power dynamics was not in their favor.

Roughly a century after the Ford Model T hit the market, Steve Jobs took the stage at an Apple keynote. Partway through his presentation, he unveiled the iPhone.

Apple’s first smartphone didn’t come out of left field the way Ford’s automobile had. Consumers had already been using mobile phones for some time. And some of those phone models had email and text messaging capabilities.

But Jobs paid little attention to what consumers had expressed demand for. Instead, he spurred Apple to create something entirely novel.

The result was a pocket-sized supercomputer. One that embedded messaging and phone calls into the touchscreen. And one that allowed for additional functions through programs called phone apps.

Apple didn’t make the iPhone as affordable as Ford had made the Model T. And it took time for consumers to flock to the device.

But once they did, they ended up giving more than their money to the tech behemoth. They handed over leverage as well.

Indeed, the iPhone ended up transforming the way many went about their everyday lives, from accessing entertainment to paying bills to ordering food. Phone apps helped re-imagine these processes.

Many of these apps were built and managed by third parties. But Apple still controlled access to them through a proprietary App Store found on each iPhone.

Third party programs would have to confirm to Apple’s standards to remain in the App Store. Consumer demands carried little weight. What Apple wanted, Apple got.

The same held true for the iPhone’s underlying software. Apple could redesign it at will – by, say, making all app icons appear in dark mode – and then deploy the update to all phone users. The consumer had no say in the matter.

The power dynamics were not in their favor.

A day after the darkened phone icons wrecked my morning, I got a notification.

Check out the guide to your new operating system.

I scrolled through the tutorial, learning how to style text messages and customize my lock screen.

Suddenly, there it was. A tip for customizing my app icons on the phone’s home screen.

I followed the instructions. The process was anything but intuitive, but I got my icons to appear as before.

As I stared at my phone, I felt a mix of emotions.

I was relieved that I wouldn’t have to quint at my phone anymore to open the right app. But I was annoyed that it took a dose of fortune to get back something that never should have been taken from me.

I feel this way all too often in life. And I’m certain that many others do as well.

Our leverage has been taken from us in the name of innovation. And we’re forced to jump through hoops for the privilege of being strong-armed.

It’s a pernicious cycle. But it doesn’t have to be a self-fulfilling one.

We can demand more from those we buy from. We can buoy alternatives to send a message. And we can model behavior that shows more equitable power dynamics between buyer and seller.

None of this will be easy. And some of it might demand some sacrifice.

But it will prove worthwhile.

Power dynamics have gotten out of hand. It’s time to flip the script.

Patience, Grasshopper

We ventured out onto the pier. My grandfather and I.

Suddenly, we stopped and turned toward the water.

A large bridge towered over us. That structure had long ago replaced this one, ferrying traffic over the intercoastal.

As I gazed upwards in wonder, my grandfather took some bait out of a box. He fixed some to the hook on the end of his fishing rod. Then he did the same with my fishing rod.

We cast our lines into the water. And as we watched the bait disappear below the surface, I asked one question.

What now?

My grandfather smiled.

Now, we wait, he said.

It was quiet on the pier. And boredom quickly started to wash over me.

But then, I felt a tug on my line.

I reeled it in with the ferocity of a caged tiger. Only to find the bait gone – and seaweed stuck to the hook in its place.

I had caught nothing.

My grandfather helped me rebait the hook. I cast my line once again and stared at the water.

How long is this going to take? I openly mused.

He glanced over to me.

It depends on the fish, he replied. It could be minutes, or hours. Patience. Patience is key.

These were not the words an 8-year-old wanted to hear. And I protested vehemently.

So, we reeled in our lines and went home empty-handed.

Fishing was a flop.

Cult classic.

These words are overused today. But in a less hyperbolic era, they perfectly defined the TV series Kung Fu.

Back in the 1970s, shows like M*A*S*H, Happy Days, and The Brady Bunch permeated American culture. Kung Fu never gained the level of eponymy that those shows did. But it’s maintained critical acclaim through the decades.

The series covered the travails of Caine, a Shaolin monk with a deft proficiency in martial arts. As he drifts across the American frontier, Caine’s calm demeanor seem as out of place as his fighting skills.

A series of flashbacks help audiences fill in the gaps. They show Caine’s origins as an orphan in a Chinese monastery.

A blind master named Po oversees much of Caine’s training. And whenever Caine acts restlessly, Po turns to some variation of a familiar phrase.

Patience, young grasshopper.

Those words come to define Caine’s life. And that phrase has come to define the series.

This is all more than a bit ironic.

You see, for all its Asian tendencies, Kung Fu was an American show. It catered to an audience that stood for the Star Spangled Banner.

Americans have held many defining traits over the generations. But patience has not been one of them.

Just look at our history.

Impatience was behind our decision to declare independence in the wake of British tax hikes. It’s what spurred us to rapidly expand our borders westward to the Pacific Ocean. It’s what fueled us to unleash technological innovations that changed the world.

So, what led us to reverse course while viewing Kung Fu? What caused us to embrace a phrase we fail to embody?

Necessity. And aspiration.

Not long ago, I was looking for tickets to a major sporting event.

The tickets never went on sale to the general public. So, I was forced to scour the resale market.

Going the resale route is like taking a plunge into a frigid lake. Sellers can set their own prices based on demand. And the sticker shock often stings at first.

This was the case when I searched a prominent resale database. Ticket prices were not only outside my budget, but also outside the realm of reason.

But the event was a little more than a month away. I’d already committed to attending, and I’d gotten time off from work to do so. I needed these tickets.

What was I to do?

I stared at my computer screen, my mouse cursor hovering over the Buy button.

I was ready to bite the bullet. I was prepared to overpay just to get in the gate.

But then, I heard a voice in my head.

Patience, grasshopper.

There was no harm in waiting. Prices likely wouldn’t get much worse until the eve of the event. And there remained a chance that they’d go down as sellers got desperate to unload their inventory.

I heeded the voice of reason. And I closed out of the website.

A couple weeks later, I checked the website again. Across town, another pro team was playing for a league championship. All the attention was on them at the moment, and the resale prices for my event had dropped precipitously.

I quickly clicked Buy. Patience had paid off.

I’d come a long way from the fishing debacle to find the ways of Caine.

But that road wasn’t easy.

What are we gonna do now?

If I were to tally up my most common phrases of childhood, that one would be near the top of the list.

I demanded a planned activity at all waking hours, much to my parents’ chagrin.

Learn to entertain yourself, they’d grumble.

This proved to be a challenge.

Books were a dud, as I kept losing my place in the text. Toys were exciting until they weren’t. We only had access to three TV channels; smartphones and streaming were still decades away.

And so, my impatience festered.

This is one of the reasons I spent so much time with my grandparents growing up. My grandfather was already retired when I was born, and my grandmother retired when I was in elementary school. They had plenty of time to embark on adventures with me, and to keep me entertained.

Some of these treks didn’t go as intended. The fishing trip was one of those.

Yet, most others went swimmingly. At least that’s what I felt at the time.

But now, I wonder if I had it all wrong.

There’s a case to be made that my grandparents’ endless activities only fueled my impatience. That it deferred the concept of delayed gratification. And that made me ever more restless in the process.

Indeed, I reached adulthood nothing less than impulsive. I ran up my credit card balance in college, without much consideration as to how I’d pay it off. And when I had to wait six weeks after graduation for a job offer, I was completely despondent.

I had no concept of the value of waiting. Of letting the dust settle and the picture come into focus.

It took years to gain that clarity. But once I finally embraced it, I felt like a changed man. A better man.

I’m better equipped now to avoid overpaying for a sports event. Or making a poor career decision. Or ditching an exercise plan prematurely.

I’m better able to embrace the process and reap the results.

Patience, you see, is a weapon. It allows us to read situations fully before acting. It cuts out rash actions. It keeps us in control.

Patience is the road not taken. Yet, it represents the best path forward.

This isn’t a hard and fast rule, of course. There are plenty of times where waiting it out can be quite costly.

But on the balance, we could use more patience than we currently exhibit.

We could stand to be more like Caine. We could be well-served fending off our impulses. We could thrive when embracing a deliberate pace.

There is nothing in the way of this future. Nothing but ourselves.

Patience is a virtue. Let’s make it our own.

Post Trauma

I looked down at my right ankle. The sight was hardly recognizable.

Red welts now dotted the inside of it, migrating down toward the top of my foot. It was as if an army of mosquitoes had swooped in and gone to town.

These were the marks left by the surgeon. The entry points for the tools that repaired my damaged tendon and removed a bone spur.

The procedure was deemed a success. But as I stared at the welts on my ankle, with my protective boot sitting nearby, this hardly felt like victory.

I was told to give it time. It had only been two weeks since the operation, and I hadn’t even started physical therapy yet. As I worked through my rehab, the welts would retreat. Things would look more normal.

This all turned out to be true. But more normal still left a mark. Several, actually.

Even with the welts gone, the scars on my ankle would remain for life. And while the discomfort in that area was thoroughly minimized by the procedure, it would never fully dissipate. Phantom pain would sporadically appear.

Post trauma? There’s no such thing.

I am posting this article on the anniversary of the worst day of my life – September 11, 2001.

It was the day when terrorists hijacked passenger planes and used them to attack our nation. When they killed roughly 3,000 people and left millions of others wondering if they’d make it to tomorrow.

Nearly a quarter century has passed between then and now. And so much has changed.

The sites of the rubble have been cleared and rebuilt. The mastermind of the attack has met his demise. American troops have mostly withdrawn from the Middle East after waging a two-decade War on Terror abroad.

I too have changed over this time.

On September 11, 2001, I was in school in New York City, less than 10 miles from the World Trade Center. When I got word of the attack that felled those buildings, I thought my life was over. Rumors were already flying about an imminent, wide-scale invasion. I was certain they were true, and that the terrorists were coming for me next.

I survived that day, of course. And the next one. And the one after that.

Survival was the only way to describe that time. Because even if you hadn’t run from the avalanche of debris, it still felt close enough to shake you to your core.

Eventually, that feeling faded. I grew up and moved far away. I weathered financial crises, a pandemic, and a career change. I made friends who knew nothing of my September 11th experience.

I’m fundamentally different now than I how I was back then. I’m more seasoned. I’m more knowledgeable. And I believe that I’m a better person.

But every now and then, I tremble as an old memory comes to the fore. I still freeze at the mere mention of any terror attacks – domestic or international. And September 11th is the toughest day for me to get through each year.

Convention states that none of this should be happening. I should have gotten over my trauma long ago.

But convention is wrong.

Trees are timekeepers.

So, I was told as a child.

The phrase is based in science. Tree trunks expand outward over time, growing a fresh set of bark each year. This process creates a ring pattern on the trunk’s interior.

This means that when a tree is felled, one can ascertain its age by counting the trunk’s rings.

Such a pattern doesn’t hold true for humans. We morph as we grow, leaving few outward indications of what we once were. It takes something jarring, such as ankle surgery, to leave any kind of visible mark.

But what of the invisible ones? How do we account for them?

Traditionally, we haven’t. Bury it and move on has long been the American credo. It’s how we’ve persevered in a landscape full of danger and tragedy.

In recent decades, that has changed. By necessity as much as anything.

Many of us have found ourselves in situations too traumatic to bury, with disastrous results. This trauma-fueled carnage has been broadcast by the 24-hour news cycle, allowing no quarter for collective deniability.

We all know what’s going on, and what’s causing it.

At the same time, we’ve changed our relationship to mental health services. What was once the realm of One Flew Over the Coocoo’s Nest and Freud’s extravagant theories is now mainstream.

We’re quick to get help, from a variety of channels. And we’re willing to talk proudly about the help we’re getting.

The upshot of all this is that our invisible marks are now out in the open. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is being accounted for, with the promise of healing the afflicted.

This is a positive change, no doubt. But also one that’s oversold.

For better is not back. And it never will be.

Some mornings, I’ll look down at the pockmarks on my ankle.

They’ve all faded now, to the point where they’re less notable.

But I still see them clearly. And I yearn to go back to the days when they weren’t there.

Sure, I was injured. Unable to run the turn on the track without feeling like a 2×4 was digging into my bones.

But I didn’t have this visible reminder of that ordeal then. And now, I always will.

I’ll admit that I’ve had similar thoughts about September 11th. If the attacks had never happened, how much better would life have been?

But such questions are foolhardy.

Time moves in but one direction. You can’t erase the marks it’s made.

Perhaps it’s time I let go of that fantasy. Perhaps it’s time we all did.

Yes, it’s time to face the music.

With time and with help, we can move forward from the trauma we endure. But we won’t be able to move fully past it. No matter how much we might desire to.

There is no post trauma. There is only a new equilibrium.

Our task is to make the most of it.