When I was 20 I moved from Kansas City to Taipei, Taiwan to start two years of missionary service. That was the first time I had ever lived in a big city. Getting used to the furious pace of life and the sheer number of people was hard. Three months later I moved from Taipei to Taidong. Taidong may be the biggest city in its part of the island, but it felt very small compared to Taipei.
Worthwhile pursuits are hard. Work worth doing involves struggle. This is one of the lessons I wish I had learned earlier in life. This afternoon I saw a perfect example of this. We had a small, Friday afternoon emergency at work. A customer needed a very specific data set that I knew was in our database but that I didn’t know how to retrieve. A coworker stepped up and saved the day.
I’ve been thinking recently about how simple situations and actions make for wonderful memories. A fond memory from the time when my kids were young was an evening when my wife made rose tea. We had a typical day with three young children. This particular day they were energetic kids who tore through the house, asked a million questions, and did “kid things” that exhausted us. (A normal day!) After we won the bedtime battle and all three were asleep, my wife and I sat together on the couch.
I haven’t written much this month. With everything going on in the world, taking the time to write a post each day seemed almost self absorbed. I wanted to keep my family close and focus on helping them and others in my community. This week I’ve started to feel that our new, stay-at-home normal has reached the point of equilibrium and I have some mental space to start writing again.
Walking is such a natural act, but many people don’t do much of it. This isn’t (necessarily) because we’re lazy. Some places aren’t well situated for frequent walking. If that’s true for you it’s still worth creating the time to walk. Walking without music, podcasts, or headphones provides a perfect environment for inspiration. This morning it was 37ºF (3ºC) when I started walking. It took a few minutes for my joints to warm up, then everything else did too.
Lou Gehrig is one of the greatest players in the history of baseball. He had a career .340 batting average, and still has the highest ratio of runs scored plus runs batted in per 100 plate appearances (35.08) and per 100 games (156.7) among Hall of Fame players. His record of 2,130 consecutive games played eared him the nickname “The Iron Horse.” He was diagnosed with ALS on June 19, 1939, his 36th birthday.
One of the delightful surprises of my career has been mentors. I’m grateful that people have reached out and taken an interest in me. If life lessons only came through our own mistakes we would be miserable. Having a mentor to listen, give suggestions, and encourage based on their life experience is priceless. Mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen, and a push in the right direction.
John W. Gardner was an activist and author who served in the Johnson administration as Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. During his term he helped launch medicare. He also presided over the launch of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting which would later help form PBS and NPR. This speech was delivered to McKinsey & Company in Phoenix, Arizona on November 10, 1990. This transcript was originally published on PBS.org Speech Transcript I’m going to talk about “Self-Renewal.
With all the negative in the world, it’s important to remember that there is much good too. My family took a day trip today which provided lots of time to discuss things going on in the world. Coronavirus, politics, locusts, the economy, and our kids’ grades. There were some grim moments! Towards the end of our trip we visited the office of one of our local government leaders. His office manager was so kind.
I have a pen that is great to write with when the cap is on the back. Take the cap off, however, and the balance is off. Writing with it is a chore because it doesn’t feel right. I want my pen to write when I tell it to, and an unbalanced pen doesn’t do that very well. Life can get out of balance too. Sometimes imbalance happens to us, and sometimes we do it to ourselves.