What do you say when you have nothing to say? What are you saying when you say nothing at all?

If I had nothing to say, I prolly wouldn’t say anything. At least nothing would come out of my mouth. Its just up to you to decide what it is I mean by the silence.

Having nothing to say, or just saying nothing, doesn’t mean that you have nothing to say, necessarily. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.

Your loud silence speaks a library full of possibilities, you just don’t get to control what it is that people are assuming you are saying through the silence. Silence can be very ‘potent’.

By saying nothing at all, you leave your audience in a most awkward quandary for each is left to divine what the heck it is you mean by your ‘stinking’ silence.

Call me crazy, but I just ain’t a good diviner sometimes.

Silence could mean pretty much anything. Here’s a few ideas. Silence could meant that..

1. I’m speechless. I’d rather stare at you because the depths of your beauty are infinite and the words that I would say wouldn’t even scratch the surface.
2. The value of that which I am about to speak is not worth the time and effort associated with speaking it.
3. I am not ready to tell you what I am actually dying to tell you.
4. You are not ready to hear what I am actually dying to tell you.
5. I’m too ignorant to explain it.
6. You’re too ignorant to understand what I’m about to say.
7. The timing isn’t right.
8. The timing is too good and I’m a chicken liver.
9. I don’t have enough time.
10. I am thinking so many things that it’s a veritable impossibility to speak them all, so in silence I remain. The classic paralysis by analysis.
11. I’m just not any good with words so I’d rather you guess what the heck I’m thinking and I’ll tell you if you’re hot or cold. (A silent invitation to play 20 questions).
12. If you’re a girl, your silence is because you assume that the dude can and has read your subtle ‘signals’. He should know what you’re thinking anyways.
13. I’m boring.
14. You’re boring.
15. I’m too tired and I don’t want to talk about it.
16. You talk too much and I need a break.
17. I’ve talked for the last hour straight. It’s your turn.
18. You have something in your teeth and I’m too embarrassed to tell you.
19. This date is over.
20. I just passed some mean gas and I don’t want anyone to think it was me so I keep my mouth shut, or plug my nose and keep my mouth open so I can breathe.

It may be better to just speak up and say it was you

The silence raises a lot of questions doesn’t it? Makes a body wonder what is meant by the silence. Even through the silence you can almost hear the neurons at work in that thought factory thinking up stuff.

By not saying anything at all, you’re saying a whole lot.

Bling.

Life is like a blender AND maybe like a box of chocolates too, but for this post, more like a blender please. Yes, I’m serious. Yes, I’m serious.

Electric blenders are mysteriously cool and supremely advantageous and somewhat necessary in order to live a convenient life full of convenience and smoothies. (My sister has one of them Vitamix deals that are just really unreal).

With a blender, almost unlike any other machine known to mankind, random unkempt stuff that seems like it shouldn’t go together, just does somehow.. in a smooth kind of way.

All you do is throw a bunch of produce, or fruit. or junk food or healthy food or gourmet food or last month’s leftovers or all of the above in to the pitcher thingy with the sharp twirly thingies attached to the bottom of it, throw the plastic/rubber lid thingy on top, and hit the GO button. Then you just let it go.. and it does its thang.

(The mildly disruptive part of smoothie making) After you hit the GO button, you just might need to hold your hands over your ears and do all you can to make it through the deafening 100db noise without pulling your hair out in convulsive spasms. You’ll be rewarded if you do. (If you have a Vitamix though, the thing just purrs even when it’s blending up blatant nastiness).

Seconds later, the good part. de-lid the thingy and pour the pure n tasty smoothie-ness into your smoothie catcher cup. The whole deal is vaguely miraculous. Imagine.. ungood food can come out good all of a sudden, as if it was always meant to be good.. even vegetables. Because let’s be honest, the foods’ true identity had just been hidden under an unblended shield ever since I was a kid. (My mom wishes she had known the secret) Bummer, now the secret’s out.

So where’s the miracle?

This is what’s miraculous: You can throw rough stuff and hard stuff and wet stuff and dry stuff in the same blend and they’ll all come out smooth (I’m assuming that you and I are both thinking about biodegradable stuff.. you know, like food, not rocks).

What does this have to do with life? Check this out. We all of a “blender of life” so to speak. Life is full of ungood stuff (and of course good stuff too, but let me prove a point). You know, the kind of stuff that just hurts the mind, body, and soul. Emotional, physical, spiritual rough stuff that just needs to be smoothie-fied or just blended somehow… if it were possible… at the “bearable” speed. Life gets hard sometimes.

Here’s the punch line: Zoom out. Luckily we have a Master Blender who has an eternal-sized magic blending machine that has the ability to make EVERYTHING smooth again, even though the “everything’s” roughness would seem overbearing or insurmountable or permanent. With the touch of the Master Blender, somehow, our life, as rough and as tough and complicated as it may seem, can all come out happily smooth again… that’s a miracle of astronomic proportions.

At times, I’ve felt like I’ve put all the wrong ingredients in my own “blender of life.” But somehow, with the touch of the Master Blender, I’ve come out with beauty abounding and smoothie-ness all around.

The inspiration for this post: After years of butchering bachelorhood… finally getting the right consistency.

Bling.

I can’t help but notice beauty. Expecially the kind of beauty that is so reaching and rarefied that mere words can do nothing but form an unabridged injustice. Sometimes, an item or moment of beauty is so singular that an attempt to encapsulate it in just one wordy definition is a veritable crime.

I believe that you cannot capture true beauty with words. For if you did, the encased would hardly fit the encasement. Moreover, silence would most assuredly serve more soundly.

The kind of beauty I’m referencing isn’t the kind you’ll see in a pageant, on MTV or E! or Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous or Pimp My Ride. The kind of beauty I’m talking about flies past reason and rhyme and riches and builds it’s own beauty-filled bridge across bottomless fissures or chasms of what we can call the mundane–landing itself on the far side while leaving eyewitnesses with just a feeling of jaw-dropping and bone-chilling awe.

This is the beauty that surpasses all understanding. Such beauty can therefore only give birth to feelings, not words at all. This beauty is described by loud silence or by residue feelings of wonderment.

I saw just this kind of beauty two nights ago.

Today is April 6th, a special day with special meaning for me. I believe in Christ and know that he lives. I want to be like him. I wish to share a recent experience that brought me closer to Christ with the idea that maybe it might be for some substance or meaning to you, even if you don’t believe in Christ.

A couple weeks ago I was in Indiana on business. The week went by quickly as almost every minute of every day and half the night was demanded of us. Late Thursday we were driving through South Bend on I-80 in route to Chicago to catch a red-eye out of O’Hare the next morning. We stopped for some refreshment at the fabled Taco Bell just off Michigan Avenue.

We were both aching for food as we hadn’t had time to eat anything since an early lunch, it was nearly midnight. Just minutes after we received our food, and having the window still rolled down, we were approached by a homeless man.

I have had some experience with the homeless—and I haven’t been as brotherly kind as I ought to have been. I have given of my substance and have left them wanting. I’ve struggled in the past to decide which is appropriate. Do they really need the money? Are they professional beggars? What will they do with the money? Are they really homeless? This one experience helped clarify my confusion. I will leave you to decide for yourself, given the impact, for whatever its worth, of this story.

When approached by homeless, I typically acknowledge their plight and move on without much more than a thought or two. Knowing the great effect eye contact has in creating persuasion, I would try and avoid eye contact altogether. If you look them in the eye, they can catch your attention just long enough to set into their spiel wherein they create an awkward sense of obligation that makes you offer a compensation of some sort. Those on the streets of New York are particularly keen at this.

In the parking lot of Taco Bell, we were approached by a homeless man we later came to know as Willy. He looked much more kempt than most and had a smile on his face. Willy was different, and we quickly came to know just how different he was. His attitude caught me off guard, and succeeded in catching my enough of my attention that I caught his eyes. I said “hi” to Willy with half a soft taco in my mouth—which action was signal enough to encourage him to start his employment.

The painful truth is that my first reaction was to roll my eyes, inwardly, and continue eating my food in front of him, almost as if I invalidated his very existence and didn’t have time to care.

All feeling and empathy in my heart fell head-long into a pile of shame; because for the next 20 minutes we listened to Willy deliver a supremely persuasive and deeply moving speech that could rival Lincoln’s second inaugural address. I ate my thoughts and my initial reaction for dinner and ended up giving him the rest of my soft taco aliment. I couldn’t imagine a more effectually efficient speech, and coming from such an unanticipated source no less. Being familiar with some principles of persuasion and having crafted persuasive speeches myself, I was absolutely dumbfounded at the impact his little ditty made on me. Both my partner and I were literally moved to tears.

He told his story of financial ruin and how anybody’s financial house of cards can be easily and unexpectedly blown to the ground with random gusts of unforeseen wind. He had family in Houston that was well off, but the shame of sharing his dire circumstance has kept him from contacting them. He’d been injured, laid off and now homeless in a matter of three short months… and he’s still injured because he can’t get proper care.

Willy was eloquent. He was real and grammatically correct—even politically correct. He was sincere and obviously educated. His dress was relatively clean and his teeth were white. He was a common stouthearted man fallen upon hard times and there was nothing typical about him.

As he finished, we tried desperately to hide our emotions. That was awkward as there was nowhere to hide them. We got out of the car, talked to Willy, shook his hand, and gave him encouragement along with every last scrap of the gourmet food we had extracted from Taco Bell. He gratefully accepted the food with an even more indebted-like Willy smile. We then took a few minutes and crossed the street to pull some money out of an ATM. By the time we had returned, he had eaten as much of the food as he was going to and saved the rest for his wife who was cooped up in a women’s shelter. We committed Willy to sweep the parking lot at a nearby church, just as he had done many times before for just $4. Our monetary gift was prepayment and deservedly more.

Ye will administer of your substance unto him that standeth in need; and ye will not suffer that the beggar putteth up his petition to you in vain, and turn him out to perish.” (Mosiah 4:16)

Now, I may never know what truth or error was spoken in Willy’s speech or what his reality really was. I may never know if you actually swept that parking lot or not. And verily that’s not the point here. What I can know is that a needy man, who sought for understanding from a man who wouldn’t normally offer understanding, got it loud and clear. My once cold heart turned lukewarm. I understood Willy.

There may be fastidiously irrelevant ethics or politics involved in situations like these, but that’s not the point here either. We can be a little more understanding, a little more caring, a little more like Christ. I can give more than just my substance. I can give my understanding and my care, and “not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.” (2 Cor. 9:7)

Willy is someone’s son, someone’s father, someone’s brother. But above all, he is a child of God, just like you and me. What can we cheerfully give?

Think upon that and interpret as you may.

Bling.

How would the outcome of the American Revolution have been affected had George Washington sulked, pouted, and licked his wounds after he and his army were ousted from New York City in one of the largest battles of the American Revolution—the Battle of Brooklyn? Hmm.. Instead, in hindsight, that battle became a turning point…

Though it was the Colony’s first encounter with a newly reinforced and refreshed opposition, Washington’s expectations were never sullied. And though he always demanded his troops’ best, he was not a perfectionist because he understood what his best was—having had extensive wartime experience—and how his best differed from the best of his troops.

At the same time, he did what most perfectionists can’t. He understood that what his novice army had to give may not be up to par with his own personal best. At New York in the fall of 1776, he knew his men had given their best. That is a victory. Their best amounted to a loss on paper, but a success over all. For many, they now had a starting point from which to measure their future successes and their future expectations. They knew what they were up against. They knew the competition.

What’s beautiful to the unperfectionist in this representation is that an untrained, makeshift army faced overwhelmingly stout odds with unfettered courage—without knowing what their best really was. They didn’t know their potential. Most men of the Revolution had never fought before, yet they fought and they fought with their lives. The loss at New York was a learning experience. The opposition had been reorganized and reinforced with over 12,000 trained, uniformed soldiers—no doubt an unsettling and fearsome sight to the untrained and largely un-uniformed glorified militia. This demanded that the revolutionists raise the bar… and they did.

This devastating loss could have crushed the revolution. The colonists had lost their New York City stronghold which was the heart of their operation. Washington lost over 5,000 men to death and imprisonment. He was chased from New York, through New Jersey, and across the Delaware with scant supplies, weary soldiers, and freezing temperatures. It was then that Thomas Paine wrote his most famous line “These are the times that try men’s souls.” Those are the times that demand one’s best.

Despite the loss, somehow, Washington succeeded in rallying his band to perform at such a high level that it would seem beyond their capacities. A stealthy Christmas Day crossing of the Delaware River into New Jersey overtook their opposition and regained lost ground by out maneuvering and overpowering an organized, uniformed opposition—albeit a host of 12,000 or more.

In essence, George Washington was able to incrementally increase his troops’ output by helping them realize their potential and understand what they were capable of giving, while maintaining their expectations. He encouraged and prodded his men to continue on, to not give up, to forge ahead, to give, to do what they could. That was their best.

Now Ask Yourself…

Ye all perfectionists… with this story on your mind try this perplexing thought on for size: What is your best? And pause to think…

Or perhaps try it this way: Did those who crossed the Delaware that awesome night know they were giving their best while they were giving it? How do you know you’re doing your best while doing it? What does your best look like? What does it feel like?

At the Battle of Brooklyn, a raw and biting loss, did the men that fought there give their best? How could they know… seeing how most had never fought before? How can you know your best if you’ve never “fought” before? How could they know that they were even capable of winning back their lost territory by forging a river in the middle of the night to fight an army four times the size of their own? The men at Brooklyn were willing to give their lives for a cause. For some, that’s all they had to give. They gave and kept giving. That was enough. That was their best.

Sometimes we perfectionists get caught up in measuring ourselves against others’ achievements whilst in the heat of the battle, per se. That hesitation and indecision will kill you dead in battle every time. So don’t even go there dude. You can’t know your best in the midst of battle, just fight.

Manage Your Expectation

This applied principle serves to show the brilliance of George Washington. He did not demand that his troops achieve results equal to what his own would have been had he fought at the front lines with the infantries. He understood incremental, yet steady progression. He did demand that each man give his best—whatever that best was it didn’t matter—and rely on God for resolution. He knew they were finally capable of a heroic retaliation.

Like with Washington’s men, whatever your best is, understand that your best is completely yours. Your best is not the best of someone else. Your best is not your neighbors. It’s not your bosses, or brother’s or sister’s, or pastor’s, or teacher’s, or evangelist’s, or so forth’s. Your best is not the best of Hollywood’s finest. Your best is not the captain of the football team’s best. Your best may not be the best of the valedictorian’s… it may be better. Your best is yours. And you are the only one that can dictate what your best is. Create your best and then recreate it.

That said, or written, sometimes in life it becomes our turn to courageously do things we’ve never done before—to expand the reaches of personal accomplishment to include higher and higher levels of difficulty and achievement. Still, at other times, we are left to claw, crawl, and slurp through harsher and harsher realities that make basic survival the end goal and focus. In these difficult or harsher times, as in most times, we can’t know what our best is in foresight because our best is most often found in uncharted territory—like the heretofore unheard of surreptitious Christmas day crossing of the Delaware. There are few things in life that we cannot try, try again to achieve increasingly better results as our best builds on our previous best.

Yet still, sometimes we can only give, or only do. Sometimes we can only survive, or just make it through. If you keep moving and doing and making it through, perhaps in hindsight you will realize that what you gave and what you did and the way you made it through, no matter the quantity of giving or the outcome, was in fact your very best. Then you can do what most perfectionists can’t and smile wide and long to yourself, knowing that you’ve given your best. Then next time, set your previous best as your expectation and work to beat that mark.

Know that whatever amount your best is, you can’t know it while staring it in the face. Accomplish first, as you may, and then look at what you’ve accomplished. That is your best today. Your best is not found in the accomplishing but in the post-satisfaction of accomplishment.

In a basketball game I scored 56 points. I had a triple double. Our team won the game. As the mini-celebration commenced afterwards, I went off by myself to sulk. What? Typical perfectionist behavior. To the congratulations that I was offered, I would respond, “Yeah, I can’t believe I missed that last shot though.” My thoughts were not upon jubilation and merriment. I found myself focusing on the open shot I missed in the closing seconds of the game as if that one miss deemed my entire performance a catastrophic failure. I could not see the overall success because I was focused entirely upon one small mishappenstance (my word). I was a perfectionist who was entirely unfamiliar with my best. Looking back, I couldn’t have played any better. That was my best and I couldn’t see it for what it was. Don’t be like that. That is so un-Washington-like and ridiculous.

Be steady, work hard, keep working, keep moving, and just make it through. Do that and you’ll find, like Washington’s brazened hosts, that the yesterday’s best makes the outlook of tomorrow’s best a happy thought that fosters anticipation, excitement, and content without the perfectionist’s paralyzing dread.

Bling.

The title of this post is a bit misleading. And maybe it’s the title itself that I want to soapbox about. How can anyone know what quarter of life they are currently in? Nobody knows when their life-clock will fall silent. Mine could malfunction and rupture itself beyond repair tomorrow afternoon or in 50 years. Only the Clockmaker knows.

If it is tomorrow, that would by default deem the first six years of my life as the necessary encasement of any applicable quarter-life crises. Luckily, I didn’t care for much more than He-Man underwear, soccer balls, and a naked Ken doll back then (Hey, my sisters wouldn’t let me play with them unless I had one).

What could have been my quarter-life crisis back then? It might have something to do with my dad’s literal use of “Labor Day” or Santa’s bad habit of favoring the other kids at Lea Hill Elementary and not me.

Yeah, if you didn’t watch the news last night, as of today, I’m every bit of 26 years, 3 months, and 6 days old. Okay, the news last night has nothing to do with it. Point is, I’m 26 and though I mentioned quarter-life crisis, I have no intention of actually living until I’m 105 years and 24 days old (though my Great Grandpa is nearly 102 and doing just fine). Crisis or not, linear timing really has nothing to do with the crisis itself does it?

That aside.. most “quarter-life crises” have to do with selecting a profession of permanence and value.

Why does anyone care what he or she wants to do with themselves? Does it matter aside from the basic free market principles of marketplace specialization and the “Invisible Hand” (Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nation economic stuff—yeah, I remember a bit from Econ 110)? What does it matter to you?

###Of course I have my own ideas and convictions but I’m really curious as to what you think###

Talk amongst yourselves.

Or, a much better alternative, if there’s any of y’all out there who would like to salt the tip jar a bit, post your comments below. Just click on the “Add a Comment” link at the bottom of the post or if there are already a number of comments click on “n Comments.” The page will reload a bit and a place for you to enter your comment or “Say Your Peace” as I like to put it, will make itself available.

Bling.

Kudos to my good buddy Russell. In one of his comments on a previous post he mentioned how he wants “more superficial information” like how to hit a golf ball 400 yards with a 3 wood. So this post goes out to all y’all who want a more superficial side of Seth. (If there’s actually “y’all” out there—which word suggest a plurality of audience members). For a future date, Rusty suggested a tutorial on how to cut your own hair, which thing I’m quite good at seeing how I haven’t paid anyone to cut my hair for years. Stay tuned for that one. This post’s about my favorite leisure activity and a unique ability to hit a golf ball a really long way… under special circumstances…

Being that Rusty has given me the green light to be superficial I might talk about myself a little bit here. It’s true. I’ve hit a golf ball over 400 yards numerous times with many witnesses (but never with a 3 wood, sorry Rusty). In some sense that puts me in an elite club. I don’t know what that “club” should or would be, but if there was one that had anything to do with hitting a golf ball 400 yards I might qualify by a few yards.

My brief golfing history: I hit my first 300 yard drive when I was 14 years old with a 3-wood on Fore Lakes Golf Course in West Valley City, Utah (not much of a course, just a little 9 hole executive). I made my first birdie on that same hole. I started golfing with a used set of clubs my uncle had given me. It’s been a little while since then. I’m much bigger now or taller at least with a little bit longer and a somewhat shinier clubs that are more explicitly functional (Mizuno MP30’s 2-PW, X-stiff Dynamic Gold +2 steel shafts, bent 3 degrees upright). I’ve never had a lesson in my life, but since high school I’ve somehow been able to flirt with scratch golf (I did more flirting in high school…) and I’ve won every long drive contest in every tournament I’ve been in outside of collegiate or prep sports. (If you don’t know what “scratch” is then don’t worry about it).

Nobody in my family really plays much golf, except my uncle, so I don’t know to whom I can attribute my golf mediocrity other than Tiger Woods himself. (No, he’s not on my speed dial but I got close enough to him one time that I could have punched him in the face had I wanted to). As A kid I would record every single tournament he played in the was broadcast on national television to watch it over and over through out the following week. Thus, I’m very much self-taught, or I just did what Tiger did. So this post is as unprofessional as is my golf.

PAUSE: I better watch it. This golf subject is way too enjoyable for me and I know way too much about way too much meaningless golf stuff. I can talk about golf for hours or days even, which would mean I can write about it for even longer. Straight to the point…

3 Critical Points to Hitting a Golf Ball 400 Yards

DISCLAIMER: I have two things to my advantage. First, I’m coordinated. Second, I’m 6’10”. Most of you have the former, but not the letter. The latter gives me all the advantage in the world to hit a golf ball 400 yards, if I have the former. (Being tall plays a different role when you actually try to score well in golf, in that sense it’s better to be a lot a bit shorter).

A golf club is a lever and you know what Archimedes said about levers and fulcrums, “Give me lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it and I shall move the world.” Yeah, I’ve got long… fulcrums and levers and stuff. So don’t you worry about what you can’t control, just do these three things and you’ll perform just fine.

Critical point number one: Forget everything that has anything to do with Happy Gilmore as it refers to golf. The movie is good entertainment sure, but it has given people an incrdibly false perception about golf in more ways than just how to hit a golf ball 400 yards. From a golfer’s viewpoint, from my viewpoint, the show is a disgrace to the game of golf, but albeit entertaining.

Always remember this: it is mechanically impossible for someone to hit a golf ball 440 yards swinging like Happy Gilmore. It’s not going to happen. You may think that “swinging harder” will make the ball go farther, but in golf, that’s just not the case. You can’t run up to a ball and swing as hard as you can and make the ball go any further. Don’t think so? Try me, I’ll give you a driver and I’ll take my 7 iron and I’ll out drive you by 50 yards. I only hit my 7 iron 205-207 yards. Distance is not about swinging hard, it’s about a lot of things that have nothing to do with swinging hard. Hitting the ball is mostly about proper timing and synchronization of your hips and shoulders. Almost as important are your stance, grip, ball position, and ball striking. None of those have anything to do with swinging hard. If you’ve ever seen Ernie Els hit a golf ball you’ll know why he’s called the Big Easy. He’s one of the longest drivers on the PGA tour. Check this…

Critical point number two: Tee the ball up higher and don’t rest your club on the ground prior to takeaway and place the ball all the way forward in your stance. This is critical. I use 3” tees (must be white and wooden). Don’t be afraid to tee it up and rip it. The top of the club face should hit the ball right at its equator. Beginners don’t tee the ball up high enough and when they do they’ll pop it straight up in the air because they rest their club on the ground before they swing and flub it.
Most people rest their driver on the ground prior to takeaway and skim the surface of the grass during the backswing. I got news for you. Your brain is accurate enough to help your muscles create a specific muscle memory point. Your downswing will likely return to that point, nip the grass (or plow it), and hit the clubface way above the sweet spot instead of right smack in the middle of it. The result is a weak shot. Don’t do that. Hover the club barely above the grass at setup, tee the ball up accordingly.

The reason why you must place the ball all the way forward in your stance (straight off your big toe) is because you want your driver to do what it’s meant to do. That may sound stupid, but it’s true. Your swing with your driver is different than with 3 woods from the turf, utility clubs, irons, wedges and putters. Your swing is shallow and wide; more “oval” than any other shot. . The impact point with the driver should be just before the club begins to ascend. The impact point with all other clubs, except a 3 wood off the tee, is descending. Just get used to teeing the ball forward and swinging wide and shallow.

Okay, that was three points, lucky you.

Critical point number three: For me, this one factor has made all the difference and has turned my mediocrity into superhuman strength. Have girl problems. I’ve hit my longest drives while releasing large amounts of dating and relationship stress in the form of focused adrenaline. Just get it all out man… and let it go. Just let it go. For those of you who don’t have girl problems, I’m sorry, but 400 yards is a bit far without that superhuman edge.

All in all, it should look like something like this. I even give you two swings for the price of one. (This shot is with a standard 45″ Titleist 905R with a Fujikura Speeder shaft).

Bling.

Blogging is beautiful.. and vaguely clinical. What else can give you an excuse to metaphorically examine your own axon terminals to be sure neurotransmitters are flowing correctly.. in your synapse, whatever. You can literally sit yourself down in your own shrink-like couch and self-quiz yourself quizzically.. to make sure that you are operating under ideal mental conditions and proper intellectual biases… I done it. (In case you ain’t notice, turns out I’m crazy… my readings are off the charts..) If learning to operate your life optimally is important to you, blogging may help you sort out your own thoughts and feelings so thoroughly that someone else, who may or may not know you, can make easy sense of them. Such was the case with my last post, which was one of those clinical blog posting experiences for me.

I wrote and published the post quickly and without thinking deeply about what the heck I had written. Something didn’t sit quite right with me. I went back and read it. Discovered what it was. Went looking for some answers. Found them from unexpected sources. After thinking and mulling all day, I came back and fixed my folly. I went through a poignant and progressive learning experience while writing this silly blog that only me, my mom, and Rusty reads.

And what I ended up with is a perfectly clear understanding, for which I am grateful. For umpteen billion years I’ve put undue pressure on myself to find what I love to do, what I’m passionate about, and found my life’s work upon whatever that passion turned out to be—and I would accept nothing short of that perfection. I had failed to even allow for the possibility that maybe my passions, or whatever I enjoy the most in life, are not solely employed in the marketplace.. that maybe I can pursue excellence in a menial career that I at least enjoy enough to pursue excellence in… and seek my life’s work and fulfillment elsewhere, outside of a humdrum career.. in more personally fulfilling environments.

Here it is straight (my aha moment): So what if a guy can’t find a job or career he enjoys? Tough two lips. Reality is that a dude has to provide for his family anyways. Therein lives his manhood, the fulfillment of a sacred calling and commandment from God. Regardless of whether or not he’s passionate about his career, more importantly, his career is the livelihood of his loved ones.

In utter amazement, I confess that this fleeting matter of flitting away life in search of the perfect, passion-filled career, turned out to be just this simple: If no passions at all can be found in the workplace, then find something that at least you do well and learn to enjoy it. Have a good attitude, buckle down, strap in, work hard, be steady, and make sure you give yourself time to pursue fulfillment in the form of healthy passions, whatever and wherever they turn out to be. If you find your life’s passion and fulfillment in your workplace, pin a rose on your nose. I’m just talking out loud here. Bling.

Last night I decided something that is very much proverbial and earth-shattering in my life. I now consider myself grown up. Yeah, I didn’t before. I really didn’t. For years I have maintained an underlying emotional attachment to school that affected my professional life (I’ve just now realized this) as if school was an emotional crutch or a “loser’s limp” that held me back. Now, with no strings… to hold me down to make me fret or make me frown (hmm.. where did that line come from? Oh. Pinocchio?), I get to float off into a world that is completely mine… for the first time… and it’s been nothing short of a beautiful mess. I like it.

I am now officially allowed to be a professional something—a semi-serious emphasis on the word “something” please. Whether I’ve got the professional green light or not, the identity of that “something” has been inextricably elusive, though at times quite clear (try making sense of that one).

I’ve long thought that life would be happy and full if that “something,” or career, is involved with, or contributes to, one’s passions and purpose in life. That would be ideal. So, naturally, I’ve sought for the ideal.

But therein lay a problem. If one’s passion can at all be found in one’s career, which there is no guarantee that it will, how does one who has the expectations to make such a discovery settle for something else… something more lucrative, flashy, or secure and steady… and live with it? Because one’s passions in life are difficult to uncover and make place for, most people don’t know what their passions are. Conversely, it seems that those who do know what their passions are, can’t seem to find contentment and they go gallivanting off in search of another passion when they get bored of the first. Most work a job they don’t enjoy, it’s true. I’ve done it. So what? What if my passions in life have nothing to do with making money? What then? Am I doomed to a miserable life of slavery? Hmm.. Interesting thought.

Which brings a question to the forefront, if we get along relatively well without finding our passion in life, what use is it to know your passion and, if possible, form a life’s work around it? Does your passion and career have to be one in the same? Or can they differ and still provide meaningful fulfillment? Decide for yourself.

What is my passion? Where is my purpose? I’m lucky to have a glimpse at least, but even with that glimpse, at times I’ve cared too much that the potential material gains that await me for pursuing my passions and purpose are somewhat lacking… so I get bored and go off looking for greener things… and have yet to find fulfillment in doing so. I’ve learned my folly. Hmmm… thinking out loud, it’s easy to see that the lack of fulfillment can be attributed to the unmet expectation, likely a false expectation, that my career must be one in the same with my passion and purpose.

What you can learn from kids about your life’s work: Since I was a kid I’ve been asked the same simple question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I’m still asked that simple question and I still don’t quite know how to simply answer it—even though now is the time for me to be whatever it was I wanted to be when I looked forward to growing up (The doctor says I’m done growing).

Children are smart. That simple question is repeated again and again to even the smallest of children and they answer without hesitancy. They’ve made up their minds and are content with their future livelihoods as super heroes or whatnot. A five year old has no concept of livelihood and yet he answers so assuredly “I wanna be a fireman!” He has no idea that in some states the members of the fire department are all volunteers—an unpaid position. Curious. A child cares not for the material, he follows his heart to find his “passion” through other means than that of monetary nature.

My story is interesting. I’ve learned a lot from most of it and am still trying to sort out and learn from the rest of it… as it continues on shifting and shaping into what is known as my life. Recently, my resolutions to be successful have taken on new meaning for me. I want to make a difference in the world in the way that I was born to make a difference, sure. My passions and purpose are to that end, but not necessarily intertwined with a specific career path. I can be content with that. One brilliant man whom I admire said, “It is better to be steady than to be brilliant.” Chose a career, work hard, and be steady. Manifest your brilliance by following whatever passions uncover themselves along your pathway of life. In a sense, I’ve come full circle and have learned for myself the wisdom in that simple answer of a simple child, “I wanna be a fireman.”

I just found this great article by someone who knows what he’s talking about. Paul Graham writes about How to do What You Love. Earth shattering news: You don’t have be doing what you love to have fulfillment in life. Work hard at whatever you do, be consistent, and find your passion and fulfillment wherever you can find them. Penelope Trunk, (I have no idea who she is), writes another appropriate post Bad Career Advice: Do What You Love. And there’s a great discussion about finding your passion in life and doing what you love at GetRichSlowly.com. He quotes the same Paul Graham essay. Bling.

If you haven’t read the previous Halo Effect post then now’s your chance. *chance* Then keep reading from this spot –> ^. So, it seems that HALO has more effects than just one, eh? This is all too curious. HALO? Hmm… the last post was about social psychology and the Halo Effect, but it seems to me that “HALO effect” can mean something completely different than just a useful principle of persuasion and influence. It’s second meaning follows hereafter and, unlike it’s first meaning, is nigh unto completely worthless; but at least it’s something you won’t have to find in a scary-thick text book… Part II does have a little to do with “social psychology” of the male kind and it might have something to do with greasy controllers and sore thumbs and bugged out eyeballs.

A couple weeks ago we dudes had a dudes night out. By dudes I mean us guys of course. We decided to be like little kids and have a sleep over (ouch, did we really do that? I guess you could actually call it a “slumber party” too, but that’s just too hard hitting and sounds, um, littleboyish)—luckily we didn’t have to ask our parents for permission. With an xbox 360 and an assortment of cheesecake in the house, little room is left for the “I dunno whatchoo wanna do” syndrome. It was so natural… everything else went silent and all I heard was little birds chirping and children laughing and then the climactic Ah ah ah… Ah ah ah… sung like that Ariel chick from Little Mermaid. We gravitated toward the xbox like it was a magnet and began playing HALO 3 like robots with pasted on smiles… and we played and played like we were born to do nothing else.

Now, I’m not one to ever play video games of my own accord, and neither are they. I’m just not good and I don’t enjoy it much by myself. I’ve never owned my own video game console or a real video game for that matter (I lie.. excepting one Tiger Woods 2007 for my PC which I play a couple of times a year during the Player’s Championship, the Masters, and the U.S. Open, and I might have gotten Mario Bros 3 for Nintendo as a Christmas gift or something way back). So what clicks in a dudes head to make all that non-video-game-ness go away when out with the boys at a… slumber party or something?

There’s got to be some anthropomorphic change that transforms dudes into video-game-playing phenoms or freaks, depending on whether or not you think that’s cool, when they get together to have fun. What is it about dudes and playing video games together? Is it social validation or macho-ness? Some weird high off of seeing who gets the most kills? Whatever it is, and I have no idea what it is, I think we can call this the HALO Effect just as well, can’t we?

We played HALO 3 from 8pm till about 2am. Six hours gone to the wind without a care in the world or anything constructive to show for it. (We might have had sore thumbs and bugged out eyes but the controllers definitely weren’t greasy. Our old roommate, whose house we were staying at, demanded that we keep our hands washed in order to play. That’s atypical HALO behavior, but at least sanitary.) On top of all this, everyone else went to bed while Vic and I beat the entire game of HALO 3 before the clock struck 5am. I never would have stayed up by myself to beat the game.

What is it about HALO that passes the time so effortlessly?… the HALO Effect, boys being boys. No wonder why wives and girlfriends confiscate that cursed video game. I’d like to see some Harvard social psychologists do a number on this HALO effect.