BURN THE SHIPS COMMITMENT

Coach Smart Burning the Fleet

I’ve always liked and used the analogy of a breakfast of bacon and eggs.  The chicken is involved but the pig is totally committed!

That example of radical commitment popped into my head as I listened to the postgame interview with Kirby Smart, the winning coach of the Number 3 Georgia Bulldogs who had just knocked off the Number 1 Alabama Crimson Tide for the 2022 College Football Playoff National Championship!  Coach Smart stated “There were people saying we weren’t conditioned enough and it pissed a lot of people off on our sideline and they went to work.  And before we came to work today, we burned the boats and we came to fight and I’m proud of these men.”  The ships were not in the harbor and nothing was left on the field at the closing whistle.

I suspect many people are familiar with the concept of burning the ships when it comes to a discussion of total focused commitment.  The legendary Alexander the Great led a fleet of ships into Asia Minor to conquer the Persian Empire in 334 BC.  He ordered his men to burn the ships when they reached shore and told them “We will either return home in Persian ships or we will die here.”  Centuries later in 1519, Hernando Cortez ordered his 600 men to burn the ships when they landed in Mexico to plunder Aztec gold even though they were outnumbered in a strange land with superior weapons.

Burning the boats is a great way to give the troops a radical vision of the commitment necessary for success, but I believe the Dawgs had the right mindset.  They didn’t just hit the field without first having a total commitment for preparation.  I’m certain they missed a lot of their favorite television shows and good times with friends.  When I think back on all the tests that I took in school which prepared me for life in the business world, I was only anxious about those where I was aware that I was not properly prepared.  I had a predictable calmness when I was tested on those occasions where I knew that I had done everything possible and sacrificed my free time to be prepared. 

A leader should also review possible alternatives and safety valves before the process is underway to change the game plan once the battle is engaged.  If possible, implementing the plan on a smaller scale first is a great way to work out the kinks. To quote Ed Harris from the movie Apollo 13, “Failure is not an option.”  Goals should be challenging but attainable.  And being prepared for life’s challenges when we leave the security of the shoreline will always serve us well as we witness the burning ships of competitors in our rearview mirror.

LOVE LOST

Beautifully Incomplete Voyagers 

 "We're all just walking each other home." --Rumi

Alfred Lord Tennyson has a famous quote regarding love lost by writing “It’s better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all.”  That applies to many forms of relationships and reasons for their loss.  I’ve written a few blog posts about losing my wife to breast cancer.  Lately, some well meaning folks have asked why I’ve never been interested in another relationship?  The simple answer is that we had a special bond and it lasted for 44 years.  We were created in our Creator’s image and God is relational.  I enjoy relationships. 

Perhaps if our relationship had been shorter and we had been younger with the prospect of many more years ahead things might be different.  That was the case with one conversation where a therapist had told a younger widow that perhaps her deceased husband had taken her with him and she was mentally obligated to stay.  Our wedding vows do say “till death do us part” which frees us from being obligated to stay by ourselves.  Others seem to have a mission to pair up those who have lost spouses so that they can help heal the grief that accompanies a loss, but that needs to be at the request of the survivor.

When we were dating in college, I ran across a comment that “the true test of love is to pause and consider losing it.”  That validated our relationship for me and the ultimate test is losing it.  Another observation is that “loving and losing differ by only one letter, but are forever separated by life and death”.  It’s been said that “ordinary people fall in love but soulmates rise in love”.        

 It’s pretty obvious when you look around that being married isn’t necessarily synonymous with being soulmates. A soulmate has your back and has your heart. A mate is one of a matched pair. You spend years together through all of life’s mountains and valleys, all of life’s triumphs and failures, all of life’s joy and tragedy. And all the while, you are two independent and sometimes head strong individuals who have resolved to become one flesh, one soul—one day at a time. That fusion of spirit is tempered in the crucible of everyday life when it does indeed many days seem like it’s you and me against the world. It’s been said that we are not a body with a soul, but a soul with a body.  Our life’s work is to develop the soul and make it whole through our interaction with our creator and one another.  And soulmates never give up on each other.

Loved ones who go before us are forever woven into the fabric of our being and forever influence who we are and how we carry on.  Of course, we never forget and we are forever changed. We rebuild and are whole again but never the same. We wouldn’t expect nor want to be the same.  When life turns surreal, it's one foot ahead of the other, one day at a time, trusting in the providence of a greater power.

 

LIFE’S PATH

Happiness Still Life, Jamestown, NC

Footprints in the Snow, KS

ONE MORE JOURNEY AROUND THE SUN

Life is a journey to be experienced full of adventure, love, hope and human kindness—not a destination as we follow our bliss.  And it’s also about the company that joins us along the way and walks beside us at every fork in our path.  Some enter for a reason, a season or a lifetime.  And some of the most challenging paths lead to the most satisfying moments.  Take the road less traveled at times to discover serendipity.  

 

We should always be looking forward and charting a path, but always testing the winds of fortune to find alternate routes.  Embrace change and the journey into the unknown because change is the only certainty and resistance is futile.  Triumphs encourage us and disappointments strengthen our resolve.  There may even be a few occasions when we need to turn around and walk it back.

 

Everyone’s path is different, so we must be wary of judging others.  If we take the time to walk their path for a while, we may find our judgement dissolving.  And if we’re paying attention to the challenges and the people we encounter, we’ll never lose if we don’t lose the lessons learned which help to develop our spiritual character.  That’s the human job description.  

 

Understand the difference between seeking temporary happiness and eternal joy.  Joy is found internally while happiness is based on external things.  Every waking day is a new creation and a new opportunity.  People that know you today as you have matured know a much different person than you were in the past.  Live life so that you can reflect on yours at any time and smile.  Enjoy the ride because paths were made for adventurous journeys!  

 

In the end, we keep only the good memories of our journey on a short leash and leave only footprints on the hearts of those we’ve loved to accompany along life’s path.

 

THE SOLITUDE OF SILENCE

Price Lake, Blue Ridge Parkway, NC

“Listen to silence.  It has so much to say.” –Rumi

I was listening to the PBS program On Being with Krista Tippett this morning and she was having a discussion with a man who has apparently dedicated his life to recording the quiet sounds of nature away from the noise of modern life.  I’ve also observed that there can be moments of “silence” on a moonlit winter’s night when the winds are so silent that one can actually experience the gentle sound of a snowfall.  I’ve stood at the water’s edge of a mirrored lake just off the Blue Ridge Parkway at sunrise and experienced the silence of being still and knowing God.  The glorious silence was only interrupted by a bird’s song echoing across the water as it was stirred awake by the sun’s warmth.  I’ve recorded short video clips from my own backyard deck of bird songs at daybreak that are very conducive to calming the chatter of the ego mind.

The man noted that he has recorded the songs of many birds out in nature and concluded that the sweet spot of human hearing coincides with the range of their singing.  He believes that our hearing evolved over the millennia to be acutely aware of bird songs because foraging humans found those areas to be compatible with survival.  He also noted that the winds, especially those singing in the pines, have a higher range with shorter needles and a lower range if they are longer.  It makes intuitive sense that our environment and subtleties such as this can have a positive subliminal influence on our wellbeing.

Mindfulness teachers suggest that even if we cannot actually be out in nature away from the busyness of life, we can discern and go to a favorite “quiet place” in our mind.  I have at least two specific places in Colorado.  The first is at the base of a mountain lake in Maroon Bells National Park outside Aspen.  The other is sitting on a boulder among the pine trees as the Bernoulli-effect breezes slice through the pine needles in the canyons of Mesa Verde National Park.

Ralph Waldo Emerson encourages us to “be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods.”  Mozart understood that “the music is not in the notes, but the silence between.”  And the naturalist Henry David Thoreau observed that “I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.  We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers.”  

While extroverts often dislike being alone and introverts tend to prefer it, people do need a support network and social connections, while taking time for yourself outside in nature can be very healthful.  That’s something to ponder in this unprecedented period of pandemic masking, lockdowns, quarantines, Zooming and Facetime! 

 

TWO ROAD WARRIORS

ROAD WARRIORS

The photo above of my grandson flying back to Chicago reminded me of my first business flight ironically from Kansas City to Chicago.  There’s a huge age gap between our two trips and a sign of the times.  He’s strapped in the window seat of a 737 while I was probably sitting in the center seat of a 707.  And this isn’t his first rodeo either as he sips a cup of water and watches a video on an iPad with attached headphones!

My first road trip was memorable after all these years as I remembered a scene that could have been easily scripted for A Christmas Story with a young Larry subbing as Ralphie.  I distinctly remember sitting in the backseat of our four-door family sedan eating a bag of orange Cheetos and drinking a soda while reading a Superman comic book.  Unbeknownst to me, my father had begun to circle the Colorado mountains on our way to visit family in Canon City.  All of a sudden, I looked up from my comic book and realized that the world in my head and stomach was also circling around out of control.  My mother looked back at me and immediately told me to roll down the window and stick my head outside.  Fortunately, I wasn’t strapped in as there were no seatbelts in those days.  I immediately did as I was told and began to coat the outside of the car with an orangey substance that my father had to wash off at the next service station!

My first flight to Chicago could have ended the same way with the assistance of the complimentary barf bags in the seatback, but I wasn’t reading and managed to set my eyes on the stable bulkhead in front of me until the turbulence and motion sickness subsided.  I’ve since flown on countless business and personal trips without up-chucking and honestly earned my Road Warrior badge.  I did have some close calls, however, like the time I had to quickly grab a waste basket when a business associate sitting across from me on the company jet tossed up in it just-in-time!  It seems the grandson will already qualify by this coming new year!

 

2022 NEW YEAR TOAST

Sunrise Walk, Kiawah Island, SC

May the person you see in the mirror be acceptable to you.

May what others see in you be acceptable to them.

And may you continually strive for that unreachable deity

your dog sees in you!