Life, Work & Wonder

Tag: gratitude

  • My Love Of Mondays

    For much of my life, I’ve felt genuine relief on Mondays.

    When I was a kid, weekends could be exhausting. Mom and dad were tireless do-it-yourselfers and socializers, and weekends often meant going store to store to store (before Home Depot was a thing) and then night time was often going to their friends’ house for dinner. So Mondays — ESPECIALLY during the summer — I just felt the strongest sense of relief.

    Then at some point I became a parent, and weekends meant play dates, or birthday parties, or various school or kid functions. It was a privilege to spend weekends this way, but also so very demanding in a variety of ways.  So when Monday came I just felt the strongest sense of relief to drop the kids off at school then to just focus on work.

    In recent years, weekends haven’t meant insane schedules so Mondays are less meaningful. Except this past weekend we were so busy (with mostly fun things) going from event to event to event, and today it just felt so wonderful to wake up knowing that it was Monday, the chaos of the weekend is over, and I can start rolling up my sleeves and focus on work while taking a break here and there.

    So (perhaps?) much of the working world dread Mondays. But for me, for much of my life, the irony of Mondays is that yes they mean school or work but in a strange way they also mean freedom. The escape of chaos and back-to-back events and to just focus on the job at hand. Which now that I think about it is why I’ve always strived for careers that provide some level of autonomy, and why I detest workplaces that over schedule internal status meetings. I guess ultimately I just crave some control of my calendar during the weekdays in general and Monday in particular as a mental break of sorts

    So here are to jobs that provide us with some level of autonomy and control. And to weekends. But also to Mondays, when maybe just maybe we regain some control of our lives after hectic weekends.

    Note: Filed happily away in the First World Problems file. How blessed I am to have first world problems like over-scheduled weekends.

  • Some Days All We Can Do Is The Best That We Can

    Some days all we can do is fight best we can!

    I have chronic fatigue that I try my best on a daily basis to fight through. And some days are worse than other days. Today is one of the worser days.

    Larissa woke me up at 8:30am. I was in a deep sleep and dreaming so deeply. And here we are six hours later and I’m so tired. Which makes me so unmotivated. But there is a house to run. And bills that need to be paid since I’m not independently wealthy. Which means I have to try my hardest to soldier on.

    In spite of everything, I think I’m doing okay. I did the dishes and changed the sheets on the bed and did three loads of laundry. I wrote a blog post, I coordinated a pest control call, I prepared for and then had one interview, scheduled a second interview. Now I’m starting to turn my attention back to real estate like I’m supposed to.

    There was a time when it wasn’t hard at all to move. My ex-wife used to tease me like that US Army commercial: “You do more before 9am than most people do all day.” Except that was 25 years ago. Today, 15 years after lung disease and 15 years into Ankylosing Spondylitis, I barely am out of bed before 9 am. And all day long is a battle to stay productive. But whether I succeed or fail, I can honestly look in the mirror and say I do my best. Even when I’m laying down (as I’ve done twice today) I’m hollering at myself inside to get up, to get moving, to keep fighting. Which is why I’ve been able to get (as little) done as much as I’ve gotten done by 2pm today.

    Anyway. I remember reading about chronic fatigue in a magazine in the 1990s and thinking, “That must be hell.”  I had no idea that I too would someday come down with chronic fatigue. And I can indeed confirm that it’s truly hell. Except I’m doing the very best I can to pull myself out of the flames and to at least have a few good moments each day. That’s all I can do.

    Here are to good days. And here is to life. And here is to the will to fight. I wish for all of us good days, and life, and the will to perserve.

  • The Beauty Of Sunday Work

    We worked yesterday, on a Sunday. Because Larissa and I are real estate agents and working on a Sunday is just part of the job. Which honestly makes me grateful.

    I’m thinking of 2019. I was working on a $4 million opportunity for my company, and on the Wednesday before Easter Sunday I got a call from the Executive Sponsor. They’d decided to go with us, he told me, but before they signed the deal the CEO wanted to meet with our CEO. Could our team (including my boss and CEO) meet with the CEO’s team (including the entire Executive team) in two weeks? Of course we could!

    But here’s the problem. Here we were, on the cusp on a $4 million contract that would make my boss’s team numbers for the year, and he was just so afraid that what was technically a formality (CEO handshakes) would somehow go awry. So he insisted we work over the weekend preparing.

    So Easter weekend that year was spent working on a lengthy word document that we could give to our CEO. Among all the standard details about the opportunity and the company, the document included long profile descriptions (including links) for every executive who may attend the meeting. Want to know where they went to college? Where else they worked at? What hobbies they partake in? Their spouse’s background? It was aaaaaalllllll there. It took hours and hours to put this document together, and that was before we started formatting it, which my boss was obsessive compulsive about in the best of times.

    Oh my gawd.

    It was so frustrating, so maddening, such a waste, to work that Sunday. And I had no control over it since I knew to refuse would probably cost me my job since that was the type of company it was. Of course we won the opportunity, but it had nothing to do at all with that document or its formatting or its creepy detail that we invested an entire weekend in compiling or even with the work of my CEO who was actually painstakingly and shockingly quiet and awkward in that CEO handshake meeting.

    That memory created some pain for me for a long time for reasons that go beyond Sunday work.

    But yesterday was different. Yesterday — and working yesterday — was in a strange way redemption seven years later.  Because yesterday I felt sooooo grateful looking back on that frustrating Sunday in 2019. Because the work I was doing was important for our client(s), who were regular people, and more importantly the work was essential and I was doing it not because of a micromanaging detail-obsessed-on-a-pathological-level boss but instead because I myself was choosing to do it. And there is beauty and tremendous satisfaction when we work 100% by choice.

    So yesterday was Sunday. Much of America was off, especially in lieu that it was a holiday weekend. But Larissa and I worked. And I didn’t mind at all and fact it helped me come to peace (redeem) that weekend in 2019 because I realized how much of a better place I’m in today.

  • A Magical 4th Of July On The Greenwater Lakes Trail

    Yesterday we went hiking on the Greenwater Lake Trail. It was, in a word, magical. It was, as Larissa described it, “Liked attending a forest cathedral.”

    Yesterday was, of course, July 4th. An exciting day for a lot of people, a big day for America, a day off for Larissa and I. Three years ago we’d gone on a day hike in Alaska for July 4th, two years we’d gone on a day hike in Washington for July 4th, and both days were fun, so when we woke up in the morning and were discussing what to do for the day we decided it would be fun to go on a hike.

    So over coffee we searched for best hikes near Seattle and within a couple of hours drive, not too crowded, not too long and not too strenuous. After passing on several options we discovered The Greenwater Lake trail not too far away from Crystal Mountain (skiing) outside of Enumclaw so close to the foot of Mt. Rainier, a 100-minute drive from our home. We left at noon.

    And oh my goodness.

    A three hour not too strenuous hike, a few people but not too many at all, and just one beautiful scene after another:

    A church cathedral, with towering old growth forest where the real world seems a million miles away. Honestly, it reminded us in a way of one of the most awesome I’ve ever seen: a natural version of La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. How old were some of these trees that welcomed us into their midst???

    A trail along a bubbling river that crisscrossed one footbridge after another.

    A spot where suddenly the river stopped, collected itself into a tranquil sun speckled pool that cast shimmering light into the rocks again.

    A magical lake embraced by luscious green grass. In Seattle, all our lakes are populated with boats and people and geese. Here? Just nature at its best. And the only sound to be heard are birds. Was this heaven? No. But probably it was close.

    A waterfall where the river just chutes over sheets of rock like some kind of oversized Japanese garden creek.

    The hike was 2 hours and 45 minutes and 12,000 steps. But honestly it felt like 10 minutes, just a quick in and out, because it was so peaceful and breathtaking. It was a pretty amazing day.

    I’m so very grateful for the many many great July 4ths I’ve had over the years. Fun times with friends and family at mom and dad’s Whidbey Island place. Fun times traveling. Fun times with friends on their boat last year watching the fireworks. And, this year, a almost-religious time hiking along Greenwater Lake Trail.

    Here is wishing that everyone else had some joy too, if not yesterday than today and tomorrow.

  • I’m Grateful That Online Chess Is A Mirror For me

    I love playing online blitz chess.

    Sometimes in life we need a mirror.

    To tell us how we’re doing, how we’re coping, because sometimes even the best of us need a little outside perspective to keep us grounded. For me, that’s occasionally my spouse, who thankfully isn’t afraid to point out my bullshit in real-time when it happens. But a spouse shouldn’t also have to always be our mirror.

    Which is why I’m so grateful I have chess.

    When I have a few minutes and only a few minutes to kill, I play online blitz chess. I like that it’s quick (a maximum of 20 minutes but often less than 5 or 10 minutes), forces me to think, and also provides some competition against strangers (I don’t like competing against friends and loved ones since I feel guilty when I win).

    Despite my chronic fatigue I am restless and impatient by nature, so I want a quick unpredictable game and so play aggressively since it creates a faster game with fewer moments of predictable sloggery. Sometimes playing aggressively means I win quickly, and just as often it means I end up looking pretty silly.

    This is where the mirror is.

    When my head is clear and I’m feeling okay with my current daily life, I win a lot more often than I lose. I beat some pretty good players, often by checkmate, and my score climbs to the 1000s (which isn’t great for a serious player but is okay for a hack like me). When I’m tired or stressed or pre-occupied with something in life? My score plummets. Today it was in the 800s and sinking fast, and I am making some pretty foolish errors.

    This means I have some things going on in my life. Or in my mind. Which in fact I do since I’ve had a busy week of commitments while also trying to send our youngest off to camp for three weeks which created some chaos in our house as we got her ready. I’ve also been working a lot for not a lot of money (a risk of my career).

    When life gets stressful, and my chess score plummets, this means I need to be extra mindful. It probably means my cortisol levels are up, and heart rate is a little higher than average. Which means I need to fight coping techniques. Maybe take some perspective that this too will pass. Or take a night to order some pizza and chill. Or take a nice walk next to the creek near our house. Or to just take some deep breaths.

    I think a part of being a healthy human being for working persons like me (I have no clue at all what life is like to be luxuriously rich and/or entitled), is being self aware. Of knowing when we’re under stress during a particular day or week or even month. Then doing what we can to take extra steps to bring the stress levels down.

    Sometimes (like this week) I’m not aware that I’m feeling more than average stress. In those weeks I’m grateful for a mirror. Sometimes that’s my awesome spouse. But thankfully — like today — it also is online blitz chess.

  • Gray Skies Are Worthy Too

    Yesterday life felt amazing.

    The sun came out. By afternoon we were on our friend’s boat on Lake Sammamish with amazing blue skies overhead and Mt. Rainier peaking over the trees in the distance, and although I’m not a fan of boating I just felt on top of the world in that moment. In fact, every time the blue skies come out in Seattle I just feel so amazing inside, and I feel like anything is possible and I appreciate life soooooo much.

    But the gray days are worthy too.

    I think I was 20 when I started to realize I may have SAD. After an amazing Spring and Summer and Autumn (when it was still 80 degrees in October) where I just felt so happy and alive every day, when the gray skies returned that December and January suddenly I felt so heavy inside. I thought maybe I was homesick (what with being in a small town college hours away from my big city home) and maybe a little lonely (what with most of my friends being back home), and this belief was solidified when my spirits improved immensely as I met more and more friends the second half of the school year and we experienced a warm and sunny spring. Then I came home from school for the summer, and Seattle just had the most amazing weather (like most summers in Seattle), and I was in the best spirits from February all the way through into September that year.

    Then the clouds returned. Starting in September, it was a very very rainy year ahead, including record rainfall and generational flooding, and suddenly I felt so very heavy again. Exhausted. I thought maybe I missed my summer job back home, or the friends who’d transferred away between my first and second year away at college, or maybe was suffering a little from my mom’s challenging times she was going through at the time. During that time, I started to withdraw: I exercised a lot, studied even more, and stopped going out as much. I didn’t realize just how much it was the clouds/gray weighing on my spirit.

    I’m in my 50s now. I can look at the repeated patterns over the years that I didn’t have the luxury of doing when I was in my early 20s. And every single year I suffer when the weather turns gray. On the outside I seem fine. But on the inside I start feeling heavy. Listless. A little trapped. And then the blue skies return and suddenly I feel like anything is possible again, that everything is just great again.

    So yesterday on our friend’s boat, when the sky was so blue and I just felt so amazingly at peace sitting there with my friends, I realized that I need to work on improving my inner spirits (key word: inner, on the outside I seem totally fine 🙂 ) when the weather turns gray. Because the weather is gray soooooooo much in Seattle, at least half the year, which means I’m essentially giving up half my time (life) to struggling inside when the weather turns gray.

    Thankfully I’m a fighter. When the chips are low I’ve always been able to persevere. And I’m determined to enjoy the other half of my life too, the one where the skies turn gray. I will persevere. The second half of my life will be sunny times in my soul even when the skies turn gray 🙂 Because every single day of life is worthy, even the cloudy gray days too.

  • Who knew that shingles would protect my brain???

    Who knew that my health issues might help me stave off dementia?? That getting shingles a third time might actually keep my mind relatively intact in my old age?

    The first time I came down with shingles was the spring of 1988, during the stress of finals week. Suddenly I had such an itchy patch of bumpy red skin on my back that was annoying but not especially painful. I made an appointment with the dermatologist after a couple of days, and she diagnosed it as shingles and chastised me for not getting in to see her sooner.  

    Fast forward nearly 25 years. It’s 2013 and my life is just a fog of hell. For nearly two years I’ve been battling interstitial lung disease and inflammatory arthritis in my back (the battle in itself is nearly an all-encompassing job) while raising two teen agers and working full-time to support the family, including my (now ex) wife who has decided after my diagnosis that as a 38-year old high school drop out she was destined to be a doctor so became a full-time student. When in the midst of all this I decided to switch jobs to sales management for a dysfunctional company with lofty aspirations, it became too much for my physical system to endure, so I came down with shingles again. The second time was remarkably similar to the first: an itchy patch of red skin on my core. To be honest, I didn’t know what all the fuss was about shingles: to me it was more like a case of poison oak than it was some hell-ish infliction. 

    Then the third time hit. That was 2016 when I was working as a sales leader for yet another dysfunctional tech company that was having financial issues. This bout was memorable because I was amazed at how unconcerned my management seemed for my well-being when I said I had to work from home because of shingles, but more than that for the first time I understood what the fuss was about shingles. My body hurt like hell. I remember my nerve endings burning and actually hurting, like there were in needles rather than nerves. This time I got into the doctor pronto and got the medicines to help stave off permanent damage. And it was about this time that my doctors suggested I get the shingles vaccination despite my relatively youthful age of 48. 

    Now, 10 years later, I’m reading how much they’re realizing the mental benefits of shingles vaccinations: that little prick is a powerful protection against dementia. Yay!!!!!! 

    Sometimes in life what might seem like a bad thing actually in reality turns out to be a good thing long term. For me, that includes my lung disease — which gave me a new lease and outlook on life — and also my shingles, which unwittingly gave me some extra defense against dementia. Believe me when I say that I as much as anyone need any defense I can get against brain ailments — I’m already started with a lighter load (lesser brain) than most 🙂 

    I’m just so grateful for unexpected and indirect great news.

    SOURCES:
    https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.aarp.org/health/conditions-treatments/shingles-vaccine-lowers-dementia-risk/&ved=2ahUKEwjf38WzocOUAxXFETQIHZhrLxIQFnoECCQQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2ruEM2NXKWGpkuCuUMR7Xc

    https://www.reddit.com/r/psychology/comments/1pd1i66/a_dementia_vaccine_could_be_real_and_some_of_us/

    https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2025/03/shingles-vaccination-dementia.html

    etc. etc. etc.

  • The Quietly Perfect Holiday: Is There Any Better Holiday Than Labor Day?

    What is your favorite holiday? Why is it your favorite?

    For much of my life, I’d have to list Thanksgiving or Christmas Eve as my favorite holidays. But in recent years I think my penchant for Labor Day has exceeded my historical love of Thanksgiving and Christmas.

    Labor Day is a guilt-free holiday that is placed in one of the most beautiful times of year in the Seattle area.

    So many of our holidays (Thanksgiving, President’s Day) fall in the gloom of Seattle’s rainy season. Or they (Christmas, July 4th) have expectations or are just plain loud and overbearing. Or they (Memorial Day, Martin Luther King Day) have some guilt associated with them. Or (New Year’s Eve) I’m just plain exhausted from the demands of the previous month.

    But Labor Day is different.

    Families and Friends don’t expect us on Labor Day. Budgets aren’t destroyed shopping for food and buying presents. It is a day to reward us for our hard work and not to remind us of someone else’s sacrifice. It’s quiet. And September is usually perfect weather in Seattle what with the continued sun and 70 degree days.

    Childhood and parenthood can taint Labor Day, since it usually commemorates the beginning of a long school year ahead. But my kids are older. And my own school experience was decades ago. So that particular emotional taint of Labor Day is over. In fact, for me, Labor Day has just become the perfect expectation-free holiday.

    There aren’t carols written or sung about Labor Day. Labor Day doesn’t usually conjure strong memories of past times and places. But it’s a special day nonetheless. And it has become in my older and wiser years my very favorite holiday of the year.

  • It Ain’t No ‘Call Me Ishmael’ (AKA The Opening Sentence Of My Autobiography)

    You’re writing your autobiography. What’s your opening sentence?

    In another life I was a teacher.

    And for some reason I thought it would be awesome for the kids to teach them, “Moby Dick.”

    Who does that? Who takes a 17 year old high school student, someone who has their ENTIRE life ahead of them, and says, “I’m going to teach you Moby Dick!”

    I did.

    Those poor kids.

    And to their credit they didn’t rebel. They didn’t mock me (at least not to my face) or refuse to read another word. Day after day they came to class, had a smile on their faces, rolled up their sleeves, and worked on their assignments.

    I remember the last day of the unit. I thanked them for being patient with me through the book. That it had been a long slog but that they’d stuck with it and I was grateful for that (because students WOULD rebel if they don’t buy in to a unit or a teacher). Then we watched the movie, the one with Patrick Stewart. When the opening line of the movie was “Call me Ishmael” the students cheered.

    That was one of the great moments of my teaching career. Because they had actually stayed with me during Moby Dick AND the powerful opening line to Moby Dick had actually stuck with them. Resonated (maybe) with them.

    “Call me Ishmael.”

    It’s such a great opening line. Simple. Direct. Even layered and symbolic (Ishmael also means “wanderer”).

    For me, that is the great opening line of any novel, one that can be aped or matched but never surpassed. And, for me, when the students cheered when that line was said in the movie was one of the great professional moments of my life.

    I’m asked, “What would be the opening sentence of your autobiography.”

    And to that I’d say, first, there is no sentence I could ever write that would match that book. And, second, I can’t say anyone would ever care about my autobiography since I’m just an ordinary person who has had mostly an ordinary life:

    • My dad was a banker who wore a tie, my mom was a CPA.
    • I went to public schools in a mid-size city.
    • I was mostly a B- student, I played sports but neither terribly good nor too terrible, I had some friends but no more than an average person.
    • I’ve had a middling career that was neither terribly good nor too terrible. I know for a fact I was pretty exceptional at strategic sales early in my career, but am very mediocre at it since 2011.
    • Now 50 I’m neither rich nor poor, and just like most 50 somethings am trying to figure out which side of the Hill Of Life I’m on (the up slope or down slope).

    In short, I’m pretty average in every way. And that’s just fine by me.

    So, I guess, my opening sentence(s) would be, “I’m pretty ordinary in every way. And that’s just fine by me.”

  • Three Objects I Couldn’t Live Without (AKA: I See You Oxygen, Food and Water)

    What are three objects you couldn’t live without?

    As humans, we take things for granted.

    Heck, maybe all creatures take things for granted (the kitties seemed to get awfully bored with their toys and food after a short period of time unless there is variety).

    I’ve taken things for granted. And I sure as heck have been taken for granted (my high school girlfriend, college girlfriend and ex wife come to mind).

    So when I’m asked to name three objects I can’t live without, of course my mind goes to:

    1. Coffee. My life would be a lot more empty without coffee.

    2. iPhone. Not because of the doom scrolling or being accessible all the time, but because I just love sooooooooo much how I can fit every song and book and credit card I own along with a camera and notepad in my pocket all the time. I’ll never forget the first time I owned an iPhone in late 2011 — I couldn’t believe how much I could fit in my pocket!!!

    3. Money. It’s pretty hard to live without money. I don’t need a private jet or fancy house or a McLaren or an 8-figure investment portfolio, but it’s pretty hard to feed my family and keep our shelter serviceable without at least some money.

    But do I really need these things to live? Will I fold up and die without my morning and afternoon cups of coffee? Can I live without my music, albeit at a much less satisfying level.

    But wow oh wow it’s hard to live without food, water and (most of all) oxygen. Maybe someone could argue those aren’t objects, but they are physical so therefore I’d label them as objects. And I could not possibly live without them.

    We take things for granted. But I think if someone has lived with lung disease (like I have) where they’ve learned we can’t do much without lungs, been extremely thirsty where we’d do anything for a drink of water, or lived through a famine (so grateful I haven’t!) where we’re just so miserably hungry, then we’re certainly less likely to take oxygen, water and food for granted.

    Here’s to Oxygen. And water. And food. In that order. I will not take you for granted. And I’m just so grateful for you.