When is It My Turn to Be Whom I can Be?

"When is it finally going to be my turn to be the person I was meant to be?"

Now that is a question. We ask ourselves that question from the time we are children until the moment we die. And for most of us, the answer we get is never quite satisfactory.

While we are children and in our early teens, our parents control our lives. They set the boundaries and limit the extent to which we can do our own thing. We chafe at the constraints on our lives and we can't wait until we can leave home and live on our own.

So when it is time to head off for college, we leap feet first into the world. But when we get there, it isn't exactly what we thought we would find. There are still constraints on our options, only we have substituted the university for our parents. We have a lot more latitude in deciding what we are going to do or when we are going to do it. But now the onus is more and more on us to make our lives work, and at that stage of our lives we don't fully understand the rules of the game... the game of life... the treacherous game of relationships... the game of sexual exploration... the game of becoming a success. And at that point we don't even comprehend what it means to be successful or the price we might have to pay for being successful. Nothing is clear cut anymore and the possibiliy that we might screw up royally is very real.

Most of us survive that particular right of passage, meet our one and only, get married and maybe have kids. Once again we ask the question, "When is it going to be my time?" But bills have got to be paid. Our time becomes scarcer and the time to do the things we personnaly want to do, gets lost in taking the kids to soccer practice or to school, going to some social event because your significant wants to go, having to work overtime because a project has to be finished by deadline, and so on.

So when the kids grow up and graduate from college, is it our time then? No. There will simply be another set of challenges and problems and demands on our time.

And then it will be time to take care of our parents when they get old and can no longer take care of themselves. The sand is running out in the hourglass and we still haven't been allowed to occupy the center of the universe for even a short time. Our lives continue to be about someone else who we have to take care of. There never seem to be enough hours in the day and it seems increasingly like that with each passing year.

And then we get old, and the possiblilties wither away and die.

At least that is how it might seem to us. The reality is probably that it will never be purely our time to be whom we might be. We never get 100 per cent or even 80 per cent of what we want in life. That is not how the world works. And we do not make it in the world on our own. Many people along the way have helped us and made it possible for us to achieve the successes we enjoy. Other people impact our lives and we impact the lives of others. Picture billiard balls on a pool table. One ball strikes another and sends the second ball in a diffeent direction than it was going in the first place. Each of us is a billiard ball of sorts and our lives take the circuitous route it takes, because we are changed by the people we meet and the events of our respective lives. The accidental collisions with other people shape and form us.

We live our lives as part of a larger family or group. For none of us is it ever "our time" because we are forced by circumstances to share our meager resources of time or talent and sometimes money with other people. Our lives are about "... you and me and us together."

Believing that there is an actual answer to the question, "When is it my turn?": is one of illusions to which we cling fiercely. The world in which that question might be answered does not exist.

It is never any one person's time to be. However, if we are very fortunate, we will find someone to share our lives and then it will be "Our Time," to grow and to find support and love and joy together. It takes a long time to fully digest that fact. But when we do, life can become very good for us and each day becomes quality time with the people who are really important to us.

At the End of the Day... Random Thoughts

First Thought

Does money really make the world go round?

Yes. Some people will say that it does not take money to be happy. But it is truer than any of us want to believe that money makes the world go round. Having money, even a lot of it, may not guarantee that you will be happy or contented with your life. Lacking money for essential things and living in survival mode from day to day, will certainly make life more difficult and make being a happy person more difficult. How can one have any self-esteen and self-respect if there is not enough money in the bank to move beyond just financial survival? Believing in G'd will take one only so far. From my perspective, relying on the kindness of strangers would probably get pretty old very soon.

Okay, to get the green stuff we will have to make compromises. In fact, there will be times that we are expected to be absolutely selfless. But how many of us are capable of being a Mother Teresa? Not many. Most of us have to struggle with weighing our own self-interest against the interests and needs of others. Besides which, if we are unable to provide for our own essential needs first, how are we ever going to be able to step away from our own lives and focus on the genuine needs of others.

At the end of the day, we do what we have to do and accept the difficult choices and disappointments that go with doing that. Except for the fortunate few who end up making great money and doing what they love to do, the rest of us would do well to make the best of the hand we are dealt, with regard to money. Whatever hand we are dealt, it will never be as bad as it could be or as good as we would like it to be. And that is the reality.

Thought Two

Making a difference... what difference does it make if I do or don't?

Even late in the game, I still believe that it is important to make a difference in our communities and in the world. Maybe we can't stop the insanity, the unsettling indifference, the violence and the injustices we witness every day. But by our commitment to making a difference, we can help to make the life of even just one person more bearable and more hopeful. True, we are keeping the wolves of desperation, war, hatred and prejudice at bay for just one more day. However, that may be all that keeps mankind from completely destroying this world today. If you think about it, today is all that we ever really have, with any certainty. And maybe in the process, we can redeem ourselves, because none of us are without misdeeds or omissions.

Kick-Starting Myself Out of the Doldrums

With my life moving neither backwards or forward, I struggle to find the right question I should be asking myself at this point. As always, it is the questions we ask ourselves rather than the answers we come up with that is most critical. The wrong question or the irrelevant question only serves to delay a resolution.

So I know I need to make some critical decisions and important changes in the way I live my life. Something needs to be done. A lovely word, something. The trick is to move from the indefinite something to the concrete notion of a specific plan of action.

What issues are holding me back? I start with a random list of the real issues confronting me right now. I have to distill that list into an understanding of the challenge that confronts me at the moment. And I need to prioritize so that I channel my efforts into dealing with the most important of these issues.

How should I proceed from here and now? I need to strategize. Lay out a game plan. I must make sure in my own mind that this has a chance of working... that is not just a wishful strategy that ill-fits the person that I am and the way I think and the way I function best.

I will need to unclutter my mind [and my life] and not allow myself to be distracted from the task at hand. And then I will have to take the first step. And then the next step. And stay focused until the momentum is carrying me towards a time when I have solved this set of problems and can now move on to the next set of problems, with a renewed confidence and resolve and a forward momentum that will allow me to keep moving forward again, instead of just marching in place or losing ground.

Before I initiate the plan, I have to ask one more question. What have I been doing that has caused me to shoot myself in the foot time after time? A brief moment of introspection is a good thing here. What habits do I have that prevent me from achieving success in what I try to do? Without devoting a huge amount of time to take a hard look at myself, I need to answer these questions and take a quick note of what I have rediscovered about myself. It will only help if I write my findings down and keep the observations in a place I can find them as I carry out my plans... to remind myself about where I don't want to go and what I don't want to do yet one more time.

Then it is time to do whatever I have to do.

Lost and Found

Drifting. I am drifting through my life at the moment, wherever the stream will take me. The rudder of my life seems to have a mind of its own. I find myself waiting for something to happen that gives me a clue as to what I should be doing next in my life. What exactly am I looking for? Something like an overhanging branch which I can grab and use to pull myself on the dry land at a place where I feel that I should be... where I feel I belong.

For the moment, I am lost and drifting. But I am keeping my eyes and ears... all my senses alert and aware of everything that is happening about me. I will find that something which I can grab onto... which will enable me to get my bearings once more. I desperately need to find that time and place. And I will, in time. That is something I must find for myself, because I am very tired of the fact that I am still drifting through my life.

On the Other Hand

I used to believe that I absolutely needed to be passionate about something in my life... a hobby, a cause, my writing... something. I based that belief on the logic that without that passion, there would be something missing in my life. I did not always reside in the real world and I sometimes neglected very important matters... but I felt vividly alive.

And then, as life sometimes happens, a series of eye-opening events brought me back down to earth. I was forced to rejoin the real world and to finally grow up. Suddenly, being passionate occasionally became something of a distraction. My thoughts began to be focused on making money and belatedly setting aside a nest egg for my retirement, which is just around the corner. I had to come to terms with the financial mess I had put myself into. So I had little time for my passions. I had become pragmatic and practical. As I had hoped would be the case, people began to see me as more solid and focused. I no longer felt that I had to justify my existence to other people and I was treated with the beginnings of respect. So my life was significantly better in that regard. But now there was something missing.

I found myself in the same position as Jack, in Jack and the Beanstalk. I was doing my best to escape the giant, as I was sliding down the beanstalk back to earth. Halfway down, I looked up and realized I would miss the danger and the excitement of that adventure. I looked down at my home and my family and I also realized that I missed what I had there. Somehow I wanted to exist in between the two poles of my existence. But I know that being able to find that balance in life is difficult to achieve and even more difficult to sustain.

For a time, I haven't written very much. I would not make the time to do that. I was in that mode of "...and miles to go before I sleep."

If you have read this blog and my other blog, insidemyworldhfireman.blogspot.com, you would know that I feel passionately that somehow part of my destiny is to be a writer, if only the writer of a weblog. I make a small difference in the world by being creative and sharing with the world my take on things. So I sense that it is important for me to set some time aside for writing.

In my journey, I am at that point at which I am figuring out a little better how life works and understanding what usually does not work well in the end. I also know very well that just knowing what choices I should be making will not guarantee that I make the right choices or the best choices for me.

I will have to pick and choose carefully how I fill out each day. Some days I will have to be more of the solid, practical soul. Other days I will have the luxury of giving into my whims and passions. Hopefully, I will have acquired the wisdom to know best when to do one thing or the other... to find that elusive balance in our lives that all of us should be striving to find.

One thing is certainly true. There is nothing we will ever choose to do or say that will not impact someone else. We will continually be impacted by what other people do. So it would seem that striking a balance in our days is important not just to us but to the larger world beyond that of our individual lives.

Living on the edge and living dangerously and passionately feels amazing... thrilling... exhilarating. One should remember, however, that living on the edge is much akin to falling in love. In both cases, one lives through the equivalent of a self-induced high. And when "the honeymoon period" ends, we turn back into the person we were before our escape from reality. That can be an awful moment or a moment like any other. How it does turn out will all depend on how well we have been able to keep things in context, never losing sight of what we practically need to be doing to keep life on an even keel.

Thankfully, I am doing just that now. My head is clear. I am using this window of opportunity to indulge myself and do some writing. My life is still good. I am pleased that you were here to share this moment with me.

Kindest regards,

Howard Fireman

State of Mind - May 7, 2007

First Random Thought

Anymore, I just don't have much time to veg out watching television. There are too many things I have to do or that I really want to do. So I don't see much point to wasting my time in front of the boob tube. And I definitely have no need for a 52" big screen tv set.

Another Random Thought

Marilyn and I were at the art museum yesterday. In the gift shop, we saw a lot of really neat stuff and some really beautiful objects. Cleverly designed notebooks or nightlights that revealed beautiful works of art when plugged in. And Marilyn found the jewelry section, with all sorts of tempting necklaces and earrings. But we didn't buy anything.

There is only a finite amount of space in our small apartment and we know we couldn't cram one more thing in, even if we wanted to.

Making A Space in My Life for Being Able to Think Clearly

Over the last five or six months, my life has changed dramatically. I have made one of those paradigm shifts and when one does that, everything changes.

For us humans, a paradigm is the model we build in our heads of how the world is supposed to work. Whenever we have to make a decision or we have to choose how we are going to handle a situation, we use our own particular paradigm to guide our actions and choices. A paradigm shift occurs when we have experiences which cause us to reevaluate how we see things and we revise our paradigm, our model of the world.

Towards the end of my time at my last job, what I was doing had ceased to be much fun and even before the office closed, I knew deep down that it was time to move on to something different.

When my life as a tech support person with an internet provider came to an end in mid-December last year, I suddenly had a lot of time on my hands. For a brief period, I had the luxury of having the time to think about my life and about what I wanted to do now that I needed to find another job.

In a way, the time between jobs was a really lovely time. I could slow the pace of my life. It was momentarily no longer necessary to run from one obligation or commitment to the next. I could stand on the sidelines and watch everyone else race about like semi-crazy people, functioning mindlessly on autopilot. I could clear my head and try to think clearly not just about where I wanted to work next, but also where I wanted to take my life, in general.

I found some work sooner than I might have wished to do that. But when the money shortfall became critical, I did not have much of a choice. So I was back in the grind and as I took on more and more responsibility at work, I found myself back into that world of get up in the morning, go to work, come home, make dinner, clean the kitchen, check the bills and if I was very lucky to catch a little television. Suddenly, once again, there are just not enough hours in the day to get to everything which I needed to take care of. Most evenings now, I have just enough time to put out the biggest fires and then to crash to catch 5 or 6 hours of sleep if I am lucky.

While I worked in internet tech support, I worked the 3 to 11 shift. So even then, I had started to stay up late at night when it was very quiet and the television set had been turned off. Only then could I truly hear myself think. Only then could I begin to make sense of what was happening to me and of the options from which I could choose.

Now, I really cannot do the late night thing. The morning comes much too soon and it only takes one or two nights of staying up until one or two AM to make me become something of a zombie during the day. And being really tired and fuzzy-brained is not something I can afford to be as an administrative assistant. I have to be sharp and wide awake. Returning back to the normal office hours has forced me to make some major adjustments in the way I live each day.

However, only now am I coming to terms with the most important adjustment I have had to make. For me to keep my psychological balance... for me to be able to have some sense of where I have been, where I am now and where I am headed, I need time every day to take stock of the day. I need that time to make the small mid-course corrections that enable me to stay on course. But staying up late into the night is obviously no longer a viable option.

So here I sit, before my computer, trying to figure out how I am going to handle this problem. How am I going to carve out a block of time each day to do this, when I don't even have time enough for all the other things on my list of things to do? Honestly, I don't know yet. As has been my habit in the past, it is late at night, almost midnight. I am stealing time from my sleep because for the moment I don't know what else to do.

But, my gracious readers, stay tuned. I will work out this critical matter. I will have to give up something else, to create this island in time so that I will have my time to reflect on things. I suspect that I am not the only person on this planet who has this problem. Hopefully, whatever strategy I work out may be something that you can use in one form or another. When I have worked out a solution I will get back with you.

Taking A "Snow Day"

Today I declared this to be a "Snow Day." I live in Houston, Texas and it almost never snows here. So how could I do that? Let me explain it to you.

In our northern states like Ohio, New York and Wisconsin, sometimes the snowfall is so heavy that the powers that be close the school because it is nearly impossible to get children to school. So the kids have the day off from school. Our equivalent down here in Houston would be a cold day with ice on the roads or when we are in the middle of a really bad rain storm... the latter could be called a "flood day."

Anyway, I felt the need to escape from the grind for a day. I had been inundated by so many issues personal and otherwise, that I no longer had the strength or the inclination to slog through it. So since all the various things that I had to do had simply come at me too fast and too furiously, I was drowning in my responsibilities, I took a cue from my fellow Americans from the north. I declared today a snow day and I stayed home and just sort of chilled out [pun unintended.] I just needed to recharge my batteries for 24 hours and that is exactly what I did.

Well I have and now I am ready to head back into the grind once again. Taking a snow day is not something I can or should do very often. But every so often it is just what the doctor ordered and we need to give ourselves just a bit of time just to live unencumbered by the stuff that normally clutters our days and sucks up our time.

Take my word for it. Snow Days are good for the soul. You ought to try it sometime.

Remembering to Leave Some Space in My Life for Dreams and for Aspirations

I have finally moved on in my life to that stage that has to do with being practical and with making the necessary compromises to survive in this life. Even if it took me almost 60 years to get to this point, I did. And, I guess, that is what really matters, isn't it? I want to say that getting to where I am today, is supposed to be what growing up is supposed to be all about. But you know what? Now I sometimes have this terribly empty feeling that now something terribly important is missing from my life. Until now, I wasn't exactly sure what that something was.

Stephen Sondheim, in the first scene of Merrily We Roll Along, gives us a wonderfully clear picture of what it means to be where I am and where a lot of you already are, as well. In this scene, Franklin Shepherd, a famous songwriter and producer, has been invited to be the main speaker at the graduation at the high school from which he graduated twenty-five years earlier. At his own graduation, he declared, "My final thought is a simple but mighty thought. It is the obligation we have been given. It is to not turn out the same. It is to grow, to accomplish, to change the world."

In the first scene of the play, the man we are seeing and hearing is the man he turned out to be. This play looks at Mr. Shepherd in a unique way. It starts in the present and moves one step at a time into the past, all the way back to that moment he spoke as his class's valedictorian. For the moment, you and I are only concerned with how he turned out and his own take on life as a grownup. What follows is an excerpt from lines from that scene.

"...[W]ould I be hanged if I told you innocents a few realities. I can save you guys so much pain and hurt if I can make you understand today that life isn't about doing the best; it'd about doing the best you can.

A goal is something you aim for more than something you achieve.

I'm thinking you better start by hearing the word 'practical' right here, right now. today.
Some day I guarantee you'll know 'practical' very well. Fate has a way of introducing 'practical' eventually.

And it's the same with 'compromise.' Compromise is how you survive. Compromise is the bottom line, let me tell you.

If you know now that what you're intending to happen ain't gonna happen the way you think it's gonna happen, because life has some ideas about your intentions.

Hey kids! Listen to us 'old guys' if you can. I know you don't see it, but some day you're going to be us."

That is a pretty sobering bit of "wisdom." As I was growing up, I harbored nearly impossible dreams and ambitions for myself. I, for one, did not want to hear the words "practical" and "compromise" and I knew for a fact that when I hit my stride I was going to conquer the world as a writer or something. I was going to change the world in a big way. So how did it turn out for me? I did not realize these goals. As you have already figured out, it took me a very long time to come to terms with the realities of life and to become a practical person. My wife is very relieved that I finally did that.

And understanding the notion of compromise... well, for too long, I had a very hard time reconciling that the way things should be done, honestly and ethically, was most not the way that things in life happened. People were as often as not less than kind and considerate of other people. The playing field was and is still anything but even in most endeavors. Politicians are... well, it suffices to say that they are politicians. I will leave it at that. The United Nations as an organization is something less than united. The world is not a perfect place. In fact, it is a fair statement to say the world is a certifiable mess and always has been, with humans at the helm.

Let's get really basic here. Eventually I figured out that I wasn't going to save the world any more than I was going to save even a single person from making some dreadful mistakes. Hell! I was so worried about saving the world that I wasn't paying attention to my own personal affairs. Bills did not get paid. I had problems at work, because of my notion that certain practices and situations shouldn't be allowed. I learned that workplaces are not perfect models of human dynamics either. In my own personal relationships, I made mistakes, in large measure because I was focusing on how I was going to make a large place for myself in the world. I didn't always think about what was happening right around me and about the people who were near and close.I did not think about the impact of my actions on the people about whom I cared the most. I shot myself in the foot a lot and kept on doing it over and over again.

Then one day, late in the game, I got practical. I made compromises. I have become a modestly functional human being. I took my dreams, my hopes for my life... my aspirations and I put them into a shoe box and put them on the top shelf in my closet. Out of sight and out of mind. These days, I am feeling pretty chipper. Yesterday, I even enjoyed one of the rare moments of survival in the face of adversity and of modest success.

But in the quiet moments, I feel a sense of loss. Sometimes I will take down that shoe box and take out each of the individual items stored there. I now understand that when we are young, we dream large and we do not fully understand the sometimes terrible price we will have to pay to realize our aspirations. So we chase after our dreams only to discover after it is too late to turn back the clock that what we were chasing was a nightmare in disguise. It wasn't exactly what we thought it was at first.

Now I know that a life characterized by simplicity is something to be desired and treasured. And yet, I have this craving, almost like the craving in an addiction, to go out and seek one last "hit" of aspiration and of chasing what is probably an impractical dream.

In my early fifties, I did just that. For three glorious, exciting, enthralling, emotionally devastating and totally disastrous years I lived on the edge and I felt alive, like I have never felt alive, before or since that time. And, wow, did I ever crash and burn at the end of the adventure. And you know what? I wouldn't do that again for a million dollars. But I have absolutely no regrets that I gave chasing my dream my best shot. At least I tried to get there. It was the only time in my entire life that I gave any effort my all. That felt good.

Then I accepted the fact I had to make compromises and to become practical. I was finally ready to accept that reality and to make the decision to become a more centered and practical sort of fellow. I have become Franklin Shepherd, at least in terms of buying into part of his philosophy about life. G'd help me. This is not necessarily the person I wanted to become. But reality is a hard task master and also, life goes a lot smoother for me these days.

Even so, I have those moments when I dream my dreams and still have visions of grand things I could do with my life. Somehow I feel the need to squeeze in a few moments like those into my days. Don't get me wrong. I love my life just as it is now. I love the people who are in my life now. I love being finally able to take care of them, to take care of myself and to be able to stand on my own two feet. That is a good thing. Most of the time. However, sometimes I have to escape from this safe existence, even if only in my own mind, to live that other life I could have lived, if things had turned out differently.

What Was I Thinking At the Time?

Isn't if funny how we sometimes will remember some random event that took place years ago for no particular reason. That happened to me today.

I remembered that a long time ago, I had just arrived at Krogers to buy some groceries. As I got out of my car and started to go into the store, I saw this shopping cart which for some apparent reason was barreling towards this really nice black car directly in its path about 5o feet away. I saw the driver of the car just getting out of his car and he had not seen the cart coming. I did not call out to him to warn him. I just stood there, fascinated by the randomness of what I was seeing, a grocery cart moving across a parking lot for no reason whatsoever. It was almost hypnotizing as I just stood there following the movement of the cart and waiteing to see what would happen next.

The cart accelerated and slammed hard into the front side panel of the car.

The car's owner was stunned at first and then really angry. He looked about and saw me standing about forty feet away from his car. I had not been close to the cart at all. There was no way that I could have even touched that cart because I stood at a point 90 degrees away from the path of the cart. And still, the man screamed across the lot at me, "Did you do this?"

I still just stood there for a moment or two longer, shook my head and turned to go into the store.

Looking back at that moment, I wondered to myself why I had not yelled out to warn the man that the cart was heading for his car. Why did I do nothing at all? What was wrong with me at that particular moment? What had I been thinking at the time? That it was a really "interesting" moment, at the time?

I don't have a good answer to any of those questions. However, I would like to think that I am a more caring and considerate person than I was at that moment. I really do not savor the idea that at that isolated moment in time, I was the classic bystander asking myself, "Why should I get involved, anyway. After all, that basket is not not heading towards my car. I will not get involved because this has nothing to do with me."

I would also like to think that at minimum that today I would try to do something to help prevent the collision of the cart with that fellows auto. I would like to think that some kind of ingrained sense of community would kick in now, so that I would automatically sound the alarm and get the man's attention, like a caring and considerate member if my community.

Well, we will see just what kind of stuff I am made of, the next time I am face to face one of life's painful little dramas that other people are going through. And presented with the problem in a specific situation, maybe the next time I will be able to change the outcome for the better.

We will see how I handle myself the next time. I only hope that I have learned something about caring what happens to other people and what they possess. Only time will tell what I will end up doing if something like this happens again to me.

Finding a Silver Lining In a Dark Moment

You never know when the seemingly devastating moments in your life will somehow lead you to something good and positive. Some pundit said that even the worst of times have a silver lining. I never really believed that. I just believed that when life got bumpy, I should just take life one day at a time until I regained a measure of control over the situation.

Last January 3rd, I fell asleep at the wheel and totaled my Hyundai Accent. I really liked driving that car. Although it was almost 12 years old, it had only about 132,000 miles and still drove reasonably well. But it was damaged beyond repair. But I was very lucky. I walked away from the accident with only a few bruises. Nevertheless, that experience really shook me up and it took the better part of two months to get past the mental bruising I experienced.

It is almost April now. I have moved on and am back working again. What I have discovered is that I am actually better off without that car. I have learned how to use the public transportation system to get to and from work. It really isn't all that bad a thing. The best part of taking the bus is that I have to walk about half a mile to get to the bus and another half a mile when I get to the bus stop nearest my work. By the time I get to the office, I feel good and awake and ready for the day to begin. In a million years, I could not have foreseen that outcome to a truly unnerving auto accident and that the experience would take me to a realization that there is a viable alternative to driving to work in my car.

Even better is that I have time to read a book commuting to and from work. I had been so busy before the accident that I never had time to do that. So I am able to indulge myself in an unexpected pleasurable activity by taking the bus a couple of days a week.

I guess the simple fact is that life has its ups and downs. Even when we are suffering "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," there is probably going to be an up side to whatever it is that is happening to us. As I have discovered, we need to just give things some time and that silver lining will eventually reveal itself to us. We just have to have a little patience. As Americans, that may be a little trying, because we are not a particularly patient people. We want what we want and we want it "NOW!" Maybe we have to just unlearn some very unproductive attitudes and habits and to simply turn over a new leaf in our life.

Feel Something... Anything

Every moment of every day of my life, I am very much aware of what I am feeling at the moment. I have good moments and moments that are truly painful or awful. The the only times that I feel fear of any kind are when I am just numb, immobilized by a mental gridlock. I used to go through cycles of serious depression, so those moments of numbness have a special significance for me. That is a place to which I definitely do not want to go.

So now, even in the worst times of my life, I fight off the deadening of my senses. In the best of times, I allow myself to be vulnerable, to be happy, to be exultant, to be a little bit crazy if the mood strikes me. In bad times I rage, I get angry, I yell, I cry, and when I am able to pull it off, I force myself to be calm and rational... I refuse to give into despair or hopelessness. What I know to be true is that even the worst of times will eventually pass, just so long as I don't give up on myself and my life.

Something you all who are reading this posting can do is to check out the list below. When life is just terrifically good or when life delivers you lemons... do what I do: select one of the emotions listed below and give in to the impulse to feel that emotion. Pick any particular one which seems to fit the occasion and just let yourself go. Don't worry about what others might think about where you are going with your feelings. When it comes to feelings, there are no politically right or wrong answers. Just go with the flow, because how else are you going to know you are still alive and kicking, unless you do?

[Note: This list was culled from an advertisement in tne November, 2005 issue of RealSimple.]

Still Standing After All That Has Happened... Amazing!

More and more, I have begun to take it for granted that, at the end of the day, things will have worked out for me yet one more time. To take anything for granted like that is a dangerous thing to do. If anything, I should be continually amazed that I am still among the people in this world who is still standing upright, in the face of all the adversity I will encounter in life.

More often than not, life presents us with unexpected surprises and daunting challenges. For any of us, it is no mean feat just to get through each day. And yet most of us do just that. How do we do that, without falling apart in the process? Where do we find the strength to move past the next obstacle obstructing our way... and then the one that presents itself after that? Why is it that so often we are blessed because someone is looking out for us? That is not the case for everyone in this world. Why are we allowed to be accounted among the people who are fortunate in this regard?

I don't have answers to any of these questions. I am beginning to believe that to a certain extent it is just the luck of te draw. Some people are lucky. Some are not. I only know that each of us should be utterly amazed that we are alive and hopefully well at the end of this particular day.

This is a pretty dangerous world. One suspects it has always been a dangerous world. Only in the past, we weren't being bombarded from every side by the media, reminding just how dangerous a place it is. And yet somehow most of the time, we are able to avoid the many sorts of catastrophes that could befall us. Something of the "There but for the grace of G'd, go I..." thing.

Sometimes we are unable to dodge the bullet and shit happens to even us. On Jan 3rds of this year, I fell asleep at the wheel and totaled my car. That's the bad news. Shaken though I was, I walked away from the crash with only a few bruises. That's the good news. And hey, most of us in the world do not have to live in Baghdad or any of the other cities in Iraq. That's good news too. So no matter how crappy we think our life may be, most of the billions of people in the world just have to keep things in perspectives.

There is a prayer that goes something like this: Thank you, G'd, for allowing me to get to this day. I would add to this line: ... in one piece. I advocate that every one of us needs to always be just a bit amazed that our life is so blessed... that our lives are filled with people who love us and whom we love... that we are actually able to realize so many of our ambitions and goals... that we are allowed to be healthy and to find a measure of happiness in life... that for the most part, our lives are as good as they are.

I am not saying that any of us should become foolishly overly idealistic. I am only saying that we should never become too jaded about our good fortune in life. That good fortune is a gift, something to be treasured and richly appreciated. What we must always remind ourselves is to feel amazement that our lives are so rich and good and that for some reason, we are one of the lucky ones, still standing upright at the end of the day.

Living With Less... A Most UnAmerican Impulse

These days I occasionally feel like one of those guys who may be undermining the very foundations of our civilization and economy.

I don't mean that I want to overthrow the government or anything like that. Neither am I a religious fanatic. Rather, I just want to simplify my life. I sometimes just want to get rid of many of my accumulated "treasures" and supposed symbols of status [of which I don't have very many of the latter.] Why? Because my apartment and my life is cluttered with a lot of stuff that no longer has any significance or value to me anymore. I like living in the present and surrounding myself with those things and people who are still very important and significant to me.

You ask, how in the world could wanting to do that be a subversive act? Not a mystery. The American economy and now the world economy depends on everyone buying lots of things, constantly. And the economy is only seen to be doing well if the level of our consumption keeps increasing over time. And things are seen to be really great if we continue to indulge ourselves in the orgy of mindless consumption of goods and services and a lot of really useless stuff.

We are taught that this is the land of liberty and that we are free to make our own choices and generally to shape our lives pretty much as we please. That is only partly true. We are a free society, to be sure. But we are confronted by our own kind of propaganda which is usually pretty blatant and less than subtle. We are merchandized to death by the advertisers trying to get us to buy everything from overbuilt luxury automobiles to toilet paper. And these ubiquitous ads have even become a form of entertainment. I will give you a very good example of that. The Superbowl will be on television this Sunday. What part of that event do most people look forward to? The new advertisements that are trotted out during that game. Does that not seem a little bizarre? It certainly does to me. Ah, well! Only in America!

Please don't get me wrong. Like most other people I really do like nice things. My favorite "Nice thing" is to go out to a really good restaurant for dinner, even if it costs an arm and a leg. It is just that with regard to all the stuff we buy... well, these things begin to take over our lives. The big questions of my life have become, "Where can I put another book? Where can I put this new cd? Where can we squeeze in the 84" big screen television set? How can I work it so I can still afford to buy that new SUV?" You know, the cosmic questions of our lives.

I don't want to get rid of everything and just start from scratch. Rather, I want to do what my daughters have be admonishing me to do for a long time: to be ruthless as I thin out my possessions. As all of you very well know, that is not an easy thing to do. We justify keeping this or that for one of two reasons. First, I don't want to get rid of item x, because I might need it someday. Second, I really should get rid of that, but it really is sort of a neat thing to have [i.e. I got it at a really good price and I kind of like it and really could not part with it... ever!] Neither justification will hold up in a court of law... believe me.

What is it going to take for me to bite the bullet and get rid of most of this unnecessary junk? First I am going to have to do an inventory of myself and my life and find the answers to a couple of really important questions.

• What is important in my life now, in terms of goals or of things I want to do?
  
• What things do I need to keep, in order to accomplish those goals or to do those things?
  
• What things do I really want and need to keep, to remember where I have been up until now in my life?
  

So when I am willing to honestly answer these questions, I will be able to identify what isn't an elephant. Did I ever tell you how one hunts elephants with a camera on the Serengeti Plain? No? Okay, here is how that goes. Scan the Serengeti Plain for something that is grey and very big and has ears that look like big leaves... and of course which has a very long trunk for a nose, and when you find it, take a picture of it. Forget about the rest of the animals, because they are not what you want to photograph and remember.

Once I have made the decision to honestly answer these questions, I will be able to determine what I really need to keep. The operant word here is "need" as opposed to "want." We want a lot of things, but we actually need only a fraction of the things we want. It will be infinitely easier to focus on the things which are really important to me. I will no longer be caught up in the deadly cycle of mindless consumption and then struggling to pay for my purchases followed by more mindless consumption to feel better about being so deeply in debt.

The very first thing I want to do, now, is to stand up in crowded room and declare, "My name is Howard Fireman and I am addicted to accumulating a lot of essentially useless stuff." From my perspective, mindless consumption of stuff is as much an addiction as is the addiction to drugs, to alcohol or to sex. The only essential difference between these addictions and that of being a dedicated consumer is that the latter is a lot more socially acceptable and actually encouraged by the guys who sell us this junk. After all, if it is good for business, it is good for the country. Isn't it?

When I will have finally made that public declaration, if I can restrain myself from giving in to the siren call of the credit card in my wallet, I will have made a giant step towards simplifying my life. I will have made my life a lot more pleasant and less stressful, by making a very logical, if difficult, decision. Of course, in doing that, I will have become a very suspect and subversive sort of person in the eyes of the fellows on the Congressional Committee for UnAmerican Economic Activities. But I know what works well for me and what doesn't work well for me. I think I will follow my gut instincts and if necessary, I will go underground for awhile, economically speaking. But at least I will be a lot happier in my life.

Some Days, No Matter How Hard You Try, You Just Can't Win

Family Finances... That Part of Family Life We Love to Hate

A family is more than just the sum of the relationships between it's members. A family is even more than a legally binding arrangement among the people who form that family. Like it or not, a family is also a business entity. Like any business, a family must be operated prudently and with careful attention to the financial aspects of the entity.

No one really enjoys this particular aspect of family life. Let's face it. Tending to the business side of the family is demanding work and isn't particularly a lot of fun. Someone in the family is going to have to mind the store, so to speak. Like any job we accept in life, we have to learn how to run our family's financial side. We have to learn how to set budgets, how to handle money and how to properly manage credit accounts. We have to learn how to recognized the avoidable pitfalls. There is a lot to learn and a lot to know, if we are going to successfully accomplish all of these things.

We have to be organized and disciplined in how we run the business. We have to make difficult choices and establish our priorities. And more often than not, the most difficult decisions are the decisions not to spend money on some things we would really like to buy or to do. For most families, we usually are not able to have immediate gratification for the things we want to have. Not only that, we have to focus on the present and also focus on what we will need to have in place in the future, both at the same time. And sometimes someone has to be the bad guy when it comes time to rein things in, when money starts to run short, because that is the point in time when everyone in the family is going to have to make some sacrifices. Making sacrifices with regard to material things is not something that we Americans do willingly.

Running the finances of a family is an important and critical job. It is not a particularly glamorous job, but someone in the family is going to have to do it, if a family is going to survive over the long haul.

At the End of the Day...

A Fictional Conversation...

Bernie Watson pushed himself very hard. He wanted to be the best, the top dog in whatever he endeavored to do. And some days, the things he tried to do worked out just as he expected them to. And, as very often happens in life, some days there were glitches, and his efforts fell short of his very high expectations, either by a lot or perhaps just a little. Bernie was not a person you wanted to be around when things did not proceed as planned. At times like that, Bernie could become a very difficult person.

Bernie was a twenty-something. He still believed that he was going to conquer the world of television production in a huge way and that by the age of thirty, he will have made his first million dollars. His birthday was approaching in a few days. He was already 26 years old and he wasn't even close to that first million. All his plans to make his mark at work were unravelling, as well. AlStarr Productions was buying out the company for which he worked. Everyone was edgy because the corporate cultures of the two companies could not have been more different. There was a strong possibility that only a few people in his department would stay on with the new company and the rest would be cut loose.

His anxiety grew with each passing day. The uncertainty of the situation was wearing him down and he had become increasing testy and irritable. Losing gracefully had never been never been an acceptable option for him.

Two days before his birthday, he got home late. He hadn't been able to concentrate on the current project that day. He had been very distracted and even the simplest task took twice as long as it usually took him to do. He had gotten everything on the agenda done, but it was seven o'clock before he walked into his apartment.

He set his briefcase down on the coffee table and hung up his jacket on the coat rack. He walked over the fridge and took out a bottle of white wine. He took a wine glass that was suspended from the rack in the kitchen and poured himself a glass of the Sauvignon Blanc and walked over to the couch. He sat down on the very expensive leather couch and slowly sipped the wine.

"Damn it!" he cursed. He was frustrated and angry and unhappy and upset, all at the same time. And things were so muddled in his head that he could not even begin to sort things out. In fact, he had not been able to think straight for a few days now.

"You have got to pull yourself together, man," he told himself.

He reached for the phone and dialed Paul's number. He and Paul had known each other since forever. They had roomed together at college and had competed with each other to see who could get the best marks, who could get into the most prestigious honor societies... and later who could be the bigger success in his chosen field.

Paul had become a teacher. Bernie had never understood that. What was the future in becoming a teacher. A guy graduates from college and then ends up working his butt off for peanuts. Bernie figured that Paul had lost his competitive edge and had settled for something less in life. Go figure that one out. That was not the Paul he had known for so many years.

Paul picked up his phone and recognized the phone number from caller ID. "Hey, big guy. How the hell are you?"

Bernie answered a little irritably, "I hate the fact that you are always so damn cheerful."

Paul paused. "Okay. What is going on Bernie?"

"Paul, I need to talk to you. Everything is falling apart. My company is being bought out and I don't know what this is going to mean for me." Bernie stopped for a moment to collect his thoughts. "Paul, I have worked my behind off to make all the right moves. I was in line for a major promotion... and now this. Right now, my brain is so fried that I can't even think straight."

"Are you going to be home for awhile, Bernie?"

"Yeah, I'll be here all night," Bernie answered.

"Okay, stay put and I'll be over as soon as I can change clothes. You have some wine there or do I need to bring a bottle with me?" asked Paul.

"I do have about half a bottle of white wine, so you had better pick up another on the way."

"Will do. See you in a few," said Paul, just before he ended the call.

About thirty minutes later, Paul arrived, carrying a long narrow brown bag. He went into the kitchen and stuck the bottle of wine into the fridge to chill.

He sat down on the couch. "Talk to me, Bernie."

Bernie filled him in on all the details of what was happening at work. Paul already knew that because of Bernie's competitive nature, Bernie would become easily irritated when his carefully constructed plans were not working out. This was a really dicey situation and he had no patience with what was unfolding in his life. This was not the way he had planned things to happen for himself.

Paul listened to him very quietly. Paul had changed over the last couple of years since he had received his Masters Degree in English Literature. He had discovered that there were more important goals in life than just "winning." He had been teaching at the high school level. Paul had discovered that it was just as important to make a difference in this world. So he had mellowed a bit and now saw life from a very different perspective.

"Bernie, how long have I known you? I have know you since we were in junior high. And you are the same guy now as you were then. To you, every plan you make is written in stone. And if you make plans, by G'd, that is the way things are going to play out. Right?" Paul asked him.

"Yeah. So?"

"You are almost 27 years old, guy. Since you started playing in the real world, what have you learned?" Paul asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Bernie... Just because you want things to play themselves out according to your plans, doesn't mean it will happen just that way. Maybe it will. Maybe it won't. And even when things do work out in your favor, you never get everything you wanted, do you? Right now, you have to look at your present situation and do a serious reality check. You have to add the proviso of 'All things being equal...' to anything you are thinking."

Bernie was frustrated and angry about the situation. Everything that Paul was saying seemed only to add oil to the fire inside of him. "This should not be happening to me. I made all the right moves. I worked my ass off. I worked smart. I aligned myself with the right people. Damn it! This should not be happening to me."

Paul countered, "Open your eyes, buddy. It did and it is happening to you right now. The question now is what are going to do about this? What choices are you going to make for yourself? And maybe you should be asking yourself what you really want from your life now. You have had an opportunity to play in the fast lane. Do you like it there? Is it fun?"

Bernie blew up. "Is it fun? IS IT FUN? Hell no, it isn't fun. It is like walking a tightrope everyday and trying not to fall off. I have to be at the top of my game every day... every day... every hour... every minute. One slip and your head is one the chopping block. But it is a rush. Just to be able to stay on my feet and to keep going when others are being shown the door... That is a rush." He seemed to have recovered his composure.

"Bernie, what are you trying to accomplish in your career? What is the most important thing you want to happen?"

"I want to be in top level management by the time I am thirty with a seven-figure income. I want to become one of the most influential guys in the entertainment game," Bernie answered without hesitation. He may have been uncertain about some things, but that was not one of those things. This he knew with a certainty.

"And that would make you a winner in your estimation? That would make you happy?"

"You got it."

Paul studied Bernie for a moment. "Do you like what you are doing? Are you happy with the way your life is going? When you get up in the morning, what motivates you to get your ass out of bed and get dressed and go to work? Because you like your job and the kind of work you do?"

Bernie asked sarcastically, "Okay teach, is this some kind of a test."

In a very serious tone, Paul answered, "It is indeed."

"Come on, Paul. Give me a break. That is all a lot psychobabble."

"Bernie, these are really important questions. You never understood why I went into teaching. While I was getting my masters degree, I began to change. I began to understand that there was more at stake in what I was going to be doing than just winning one promotion after another or making more and more money over time."

"Like what."

"Well for one thing, I was tired of having my stomach in knots, stressing out whether I was still number one. After awhile, being number one ceased to mean so much to me. I just wanted to do the best that I was capable of doing, under the circumstances," explained Paul.

"Now you are starting to think like a loser," chided Bernie.

"No, I am most certainly not." Paul continued, "After awhile, being numero uno ceased to be fun anymore. All it meant was that I constantly found myself looking over my shoulder, to see if there was someone out there trying to shoot me down. I did not want to live that way anymore. I wanted my life to be something better, something more fulfilling... something more than that."

"Listen, Paul. I don't think it is all that important that I need to like what I am doing. Or that I am inspired at work or that I am head over heels happy when I am doing my work. When there is this project in front of me, that is all that matters. And I am the guy who will push it through on time and on schedule and on budget. And any man or woman on my team had better be willing to do whatever it is going to take to make sure that happens. That is what I do. No one does it better. And no one gets paid more than I do. I rule, man. I rule.." This had all tumbled out of Bernie's mouth and he just stopped to catch his breath.

"Fine!" responded Paul. "You are the man! But are you doing this just to show everyone that you are the man... or because you actually believe you are accomplishing something worthwhile?"

"Irrelevant."

"Is it, Paul? At the end of the day, do you feel like you have accomplished something of importance?"

"That is not for me to decide, damn it. Give me a project and I can guarantee that it is going to get done right."

Paul looked incredulously at his friend. "Do you hear yourself? Your company assigned you the task of getting a block of crappy reality shows up and running last year. You did it in record time. Now that is really something to be proud of... yeah, just great. Bernie, when you graduated, you were going to change the world. Is making your company the reality show kings of television the way you are going to do that?"

"That is not fair. Those shows have been the top money makers for the company. It was just a business decision. Nothing more. Besides which, I am just giving the public what it wants. Don't blame me if the public is incredibly shallow. I do not set the standards."

Paul laughed. "I look at the kids in my class. I see such promise and potential. I try to get them to understand that they need to set the benchmark for their lives a lot higher than the lowest common denominator. And when I spark something in these kids, I know that something really amazing... something really important has happened. When I get them to believe in themselves and that they can do really good things with their lives, I feel like I have accomplished something. Yeah, I work long hours. But at the end of the day, I still like myself and at least I believe in what I am doing. Tell me, Paul, do really believe in what you are doing? Or are you satisfied to put out shlock, just so long as there are big bucks in your paycheck."

"Damn right. And that is so terrible, because...? Look at the people I run with. Look at where I live and the car I am driving... and the car you drive and where you live.." snapped Bernie. He let the challenge just sort of hang in the air.

Paul did not dignify the challenge with a defensive answer. In a very cool tone and very calmly Paul finally responded, "It is a good thing I am your friend, because if I weren't, I would just kick your butt right now. Life is not about the power you wield or the amount of money you make. I wouldn't give a damn if you made ten times what I am making, which you probably are. If all you are doing these days is squandering your life trying to prove to the world that are the Man... that you are this really important person and you are going to dazzle everyone with your car and your expensive apartment and your status... if that is the person you have become, then, as your friend, I am truly saddened." Paul fell silent for a moment.

"Bernie, I have a really good life. I have built rich relationships with my wife and my friends... with my colleagues. I enjoy my work and I really feel like I am somehow impacting people in an important way. I like my life. What kind of life do you have? You have only what you possess... power, money.... things... just things. and for the most part you are alone these days. You have never liked the people you work with. You have no significant other in your life. No girl is ever good enough for you and for a very long time now, you haven't been happy, even after your big successes at the studio."

"Shut up, Paul. You are so full of crap."

"You know what? I will take my life any day over yours." returned Paul. "Remember this. You called me tonight to help you work through this. If you already have all the answers, I might as well go home and leave you to figure things out."

There was a long silence. then Bernie turned around and in a subdued voice said, "Please Paul. Don't leave just yet." Another awkward pause. Then with a very pained expression on his face, Bernie continued, "I am very sorry if I have treated you badly tonight. Truthfully, I am not really happy with the way things have turned out. There are days I really don't like what I am doing. It is just that I don't know how to fix things in my life. I know what I have to do every day at work, but I don't really know anymore why I am doing it. It's like I am on autopilot or something and just sort of going through the motions, trying not to think too hard about it... Every day I put on a face so no one will know what I am thinking or feeling. You know, never let them see you sweat. And so long as my check keeps getting bigger and it clears the bank, that sort of dulls the pain I am feeling. " Bernie finished his speech and just stared off into evening in the city just beyond the large windows of his condo.

Bernie had known for a quite awhile that there was something in his life didn't feel right. He had not been willing to confront his gut feelings. Tonight, Paul had pushed him into finally admitting what he had been feeling for a very long time. He felt really emotionally drained now, but he also felt like a huge load had been taken off of his shoulders. He had finally admitted aloud what he had been unwilling to admit even to himself.

Bernie turned to look at Paul, with a deep sadness in his eyes. He had just rejected a lot of what he had valued for most of his life. Now, he found himself on very uncertain ground. "So what happens now? What am I supposed to do now, Paul?"

"Get some help, Bernie. Figure out what you want to do next. It is not going to be easy, but you are going to get through this. You will figure things out. But you are going to need some help, and that's okay. And I will be here for you, buddy. You need me, just call."

"What if I lose my job?"

"There are other jobs... other opportunities out there. And maybe you can't see it just just yet, but this situation at work, as bad as it looks right now, may be one of the best opportunities you will have to fix your life. Just don't freak out. Keep your cool and just take things one day at a time. Deal with things as they come. Bernie. This is all going to work itself out, one way or another. "

"You aren't bullshitting me, are you, Paul?"

"No, Bernie. I believe every word I am telling you."

Bernie extended his hand to Paul and they shook hands. "I owe you big-time, guy."

Paul said quietly, "You would have done the same thing for me." Paul looked at his watch. "Anyway, I have classes tomorrow. I am going to head out now. Just take things one day and a time and deal with whatever happens as it comes at you, okay?"

"Yeah, that's what I will do. Give my regards to Terri."

Paul grabbed his jacket and opened the front door. "Goodnight, Bernie." He closed the door behind him.

A couple of minutes later, Bernie watched Paul's car pull away from the building and drive off into the night. Probably for the first time in his life, he didn't have a clue where the future would eventually take him. But in time he would find out. Tomorrow was going to be a busy day and it was time to get some sleep. He locked the front door, turned out the lights in the living room and the kitchen. For the first time in a very long time, he was going to be able to get a good night's sleep. That, in itself, was a very good start in moving on.

A Man Out Walking His Dog

I have been playing around with what to do with the phrase, "A Man Out Walking His Dog," for some time now. Originally, I was going to write about the things I thought about and realized while I was out walking my Yorkie, Spike, late at night, when the world is still and I can hear myself think.

By necessity, I was up very early this morning to take Spike out. I got a different take on what the title of this posting may also mean. I have been really busy since I returned from Florida about mid December of 2006. A lot has been going on in my life.

With the company I worked for closing down, I have had to figure out what I will do next, to earn a living.

The Holiday Season has been full of shopping and more shopping... of gift-buying and gift-giving... of extending well wishes to our friends and family... of going to parties... of preparing myself for a new year, a new opportunity to get my life back on course or to make a mid-course correction in my life... a time of making things right with people I have wronged... a time when I can momentarily focus on the possibility of peace on Earth, goodwill to men [and women and children and maybe animals.]

And for me, this is a year of saying goodbye to my daughter, Heather, and her husband, Ben, who will leaving for London in a couple of days. They will be moving there for 3 years while they earn their Doctorates. Marilyn and I have been helping them as we can to pack up and move.
It is a time of a little sadness and also a time of great pride for us that they have come as far as they have and that they show great promise of doing even more with their lives.

And of course, while all these other things were going on, we still had the normal stuff to do. Marilyn had to go to work each week. Food had to be cooked and the dishes washed. The trash had to be taken out and the house cleaned. And, of course, I still had to take Spike out for his walks several times a day. Even during the holiday season, life goes on.

So being a man out walking his dog, also means that doing that is part of my routine and something Spike expects me to be doing. Spike has a lot of common sense and he would go out on his own, if I were to let him. But as things are, I have to be there with him. I love the little fellow and that is my responsibility. It is equally my responsibility to go to work and pay the bills and occasionally cook dinner and take out the trash.... I am sure that you see where I am going with this. Walking the dog is part of my routine and my reality. As a man out walking his dog, I am just a person who is just living his life, doing what needs to be done for that day. Necessary, if not terribly exciting stuff.

It is the routines I establish for myself that is at the heart of what I am talking about. Without a routine, my life can become unglued. My routine gives me a sense of context. I have a sense of where I am in any given day and in the course of the week. My routine defines me in my own mind. I have a surer sense of what role I play in my family and in my community. The truth is that most of the things on my calendar are pretty mundane activities, but no less important than the "Really Important" items.

I am a man out walking my dog. I am a man living my life, as productively as I can, from day to day, from week to week and from year to year. If I can continue to do that with a reasonable degree of success, until the day I leave the scene, that will work for me. For now, I am content to remain a man out walking his dog.