The “Bucket List” has been described as the things you want to do before you die. I have an alternate view. I believe many people have those things catalogued as things that have to happen before they live.

In other words, we put off living until we do one or more of the things on our list. That list of things may never happen; in fact, they have a good chance of not happening. So you die without living.

I wonder how many people on their death bed lament that they never went to Hawaii. My guess is few or none.

It seems the real goal is to fill up your bucket with living, not to postpone living.

When “X” has to be in place for you to live, you lessen your chances for living.

I believe the creation of a Bucket List indicates that people are dying to live, but are putting that living off to some future date.

Here’s a novel idea: Live now!

Each moment presents us with the opportunity to live now, but we ignore that invitation hoping that we’ll get a better offer somewhere down the line.

Please continue to make lists of things you would like to do; they are tasty carrots that keep us motivated. Just don’t make the mistake of waiting to live in the process.

Final thought: If you are waiting to live, your bucket has a hole in it.

All the best,

John

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I’ve never considered myself a relationship expert but I do have an observation worthy of consideration.

If you have been in any sort of a relationship that had a less than happy ending, the following idea has to fade away from your belief system in order for your feelings about that relationship to resolve – “I played no part.”

There is tension still held with many relationships that have long since been over, even with people who have since died.

We have relationships with all sorts of people – Parents, partners, friends, clients, neighbors, co-workers and family. When one of these connections disconnects, you will hold tension as long as you buy into “I played no part.”

The denial of your role in the relationship unraveling keeps that role alive. You may attempt to bury it, but like a beach ball you can’t hold it underwater forever. That tension will surface.

You may make an elegant case about not playing a part, and you may even enlist people to agree with you, but a part of you will remain disagreeable as long as you disagree that you played a part.

You may have even evolved to wanting nothing to do with that person, but the tension will remain if you continue to play this game.

You may even appear civil if you happen to be in their company, but the underlying tension keeps you from making a real connection. The postscript on the encounter is that it still feels tense.

The remedy is to find and acknowledge your part. It may have only been a cameo, but until you acknowledge you were in that film, the tension will not fall to the cutting room floor.

Notice how easy it is to acknowledge their part. It has to become that easy for you to recognize yours as well, otherwise the tension will continue to swell.

I don’t believe you’ll ever arrive to the point of forgiveness until you acknowledge your part. The good news is you don’t need to announce it to the world, only admit it to yourself.

This admission will pave the way to leave that tension back in the day.

All the best,

John

I need an infusion of ___________. Fill in the blank and you’ll find your magic bullet – the one that, if you got it, you’d probably wind up shooting yourself in the foot with.

Lots of people fill in the blank with money; businesses use the word “capital.” Tired people cite “energy,” and wallflowers say “confidence.”

There are so many ways to fill in that blank, but I suggest that you leave it blank by letting it fill up on its own. That happens by asking a question rather than making a statement.

“What do I need an infusion of?” opens you up to more possibilities than a narrow statement of conjecture.

When we look for solutions, we too often fish in a very small pond. That leaves us with limited fish to fry. The usual practices bring the usual results.

A question takes you to a bigger fishing hole with a sea of possibility.

Take the lottery winner or the failing business owner who gets a “needed” loan as examples. Both get what they think they need – an infusion of money or capital. If the business keeps the same practices in place, how long before they need another infusion? If the lottery winner’s mindset about money doesn’t change, how soon will they turn into MC Hammer?

Get in the habit of being curious. Ask questions rather than making statements. Stop knowing the answer that won’t work for you and wonder about the one that will.

Infusing yourself with mother’s little helpers or Red Bull may get you over the hump, but continuing those practices gets you humped.

Start to wonder and let your mind wander through infinite possibilities rather than fixating on short-term fixes.

Most people do not learn from their mistakes; they just repeat them by looking for a specific infusion.

Our patterned mind comes up with patterned solutions. Asking questions allows our curiosity to take us deep sea fishing. It’s a way to fill in the blank with long-term solutions rather than the resulting confusion of temporary infusion.

All the best,

John

“Discrepancy” is described in the dictionary as a lack of compatibility between facts.

In human nature, I think it’s better described as a lack of compatibility between “shoulds.”

There is a discrepancy between what should be happening according to you and what should be happening according to them.

The real discrepancy isn’t between us and another; it’s between us and reality.

Nowhere in the “should” argument is an argument made for what is actually happening. We argue for our version of the truth and they argue for theirs, and sitting off in the distance is reality having a big belly laugh watching this sitcom play out. Each week’s episode is funnier than the last, but not to you.

We’re a real character caught in a scripted show called “Discrepancy” that’s so far from reality that we can’t see the cosmic joke.

The way out is discovering there is a discrepancy with how we think it should be and the way it is. That’s the only chance we have of closing the gap.

Finding the discrepancy between us and another only elongates the argument into next week’s installment. Discovering how our position doesn’t match up with reality takes us away from our illusion of “should” and plants us firmly in the realm of “is.”

It’s only in this fertile ground that the weeds of discrepancy won’t grow.

Take a closer look at a discrepancy you have with another and you will find that your argument isn’t with them; it’s with reality. I don’t know about you but I can’t ever remember winning an argument with reality.

So many of our problems with others aren’t really with them; they’re between us and the way it is. We have to end our argument with reality before we can end our argument with another.

Once you know who you are really arguing with, the better chance there is of “Discrepancy” being cancelled.

All the best,

John

The Grasshopper must like autumn because he’s dropping messages on me like falling leaves over the past week. Yesterday during a phone conversation, he interjected, “Let’s convolute it so we can’t understand it.”

Convolution is everywhere but no more present than it is in today’s language. To my ears, folks in the corporate world and psychological community lead the pack. What the heck are they talking about?

There are more new labels coming out everyday and it’s hard to keep up. The reason it’s difficult to follow along is because hardly anyone is saying anything understandable, yet they use a bevy of buzzwords to say nothing.

Please don’t confuse this with “trade talk.” People in certain professions use words that would make no sense to someone outside the profession. Take the military for example. In the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, the word “Geedunk” means candy or sweets or the place where you purchase them. “Get me some geedunk over at the geedunk.”

If you’re a Sailor or a Marine, those words have meaning.

Convolution means what you are saying means nothing to no one, including you.

Convolution is taking a simple idea and covering it over with layers and layers of paint so its original hue can’t shine through.

The essence of what you are attempting to communicate has too many layers of distortion between you and whom you want to communicate with.

I won’t trouble you with convoluted examples from the corporate or psychological community to A.) Spare them embarrassment and B.) To spare you the pain. I’m sure you have your own examples you can cite.

Bottom line: The message is getting buried in the buzz and bees are jealous.

It seems that the trend is to veer away from clear. Let’s do our part to clean up our language and start a revolution against convolution.

All the best,

John

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Was out for a walk yesterday and bumped into The Grasshopper wearing his Dr. Spock smock and he had this to say: “Pass on more than your prejudice.”

It first had parental implications for me, but the wisdom applies to all opinion shapers. The message, more broadly, seems to be: If you are in a position of influence, be mindful of what you are filling impressionable minds with.

Impressional minds are not necessarily young minds; they come in all genders, colors and age groups. For example, the politics of hate is alive and well and can be seen displayed everywhere. From the looks of TV and social media, it appears to affect people of all backgrounds from just about cradle to grave.

Some people are primed to be pandered to. Take the O.J. Simpson jury in the 90s. It was “the” textbook example of “pander to their prejudice.” The defense team knew they couldn’t win on the facts, so they went right to the experience of mistreatment they knew many people of color on the jury had endured, and proceeded to throw salt into those wounds.

It’s not that these jurors couldn’t make rational decisions, they certainly could, but in this case they were expertly played. Poll any juror, in any case, and they will tell you they voted on the facts when, in fact, most didn’t. They believe they are voting the facts, but the evidence often proves otherwise.

You’ll never get high priced attorneys or political consultants to stop pandering but you can adopt one politician’s mantra – “The Buck Stops Here.”

You can stop passing on your prejudice. It can stop now if you choose. You have so much more to offer and share than prejudicial information that makes tempers flare.

The only question left is: Do you have enough discrimination to pass on more than your prejudice?

All the best,

John

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My preferred method of exercise is walking. It’s easy on the knees and it allows lots of time for reflection.

I used to run, and many years ago I made a personal discovery about me. When the headwinds were stronger, I upped my game, I would run harder into the wind. It wasn’t until much later that I discovered it was a pattern that permeated my entire life, not just my running.

Years before my discovery, I had a boss who observed, “You’re best when you are on a mission.”

So when I hit a headwind, I try harder. I’m sure I’m not alone.

The deeper discovery came on a walk the other day when I parsed the difference between a perceived headwind and an actual one.

I’m fairly good at spotting an oncoming headwind, but I’m not as quick to act on the perception as I am when it’s actually happening. Again, I’m sure I’m not alone.

What headwind is on the horizon that you’re not prepping for? It’s a question worth answering. It will reveal areas that need attention now rather than waiting for a gale force crisis to test your mettle.

Observe the gifted athlete who doesn’t practice much; they are the first ones to have a rapid, downward career spiral when their headwind resisting skills begin to erode. There’s an old golfing axiom that states, “A professional golfer who’s chasing pars is like a dog chasing cars.” Soon it will be over.

Congratulations if you are good in a crisis. Even larger kudos to you if you can spot one on the horizon and take the necessary action now so you can take some wind out of its sails.

There will be enough headwinds that you won’t see coming to test your skill level, but it’s the ones you can see and don’t prepare for that will erode your skills much quicker.

The key to turning a perceived headwind into a tailwind is to prepare for it now. That way the big bad wolf is less likely to blow your house down.

All the best,

John

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“Life is a mystery – one that you’ll never figure out in a lifetime.” So said The Grasshopper, sounding like a character from an Agatha Christie novel.

I like solving puzzles and mysteries. They really take my mind for a ride. What I’ve come to realize is that when I successfully solve something, I have solved a situation, which is an isolated event in an ongoing puzzle.

There will be more of life’s puzzles ahead, but unlike the one on the coffee table, there is no final piece to place. Life is an infinite puzzle that’s unsolvable. So what’s the point of attempting to solve life’s puzzles?

Satisfaction in the moment seems to come to mind, but I believe there’s a more fulfilling benefit to solving life’s mysteries. Every attempt provides you with one of life’s most precious gifts – Resourcefulness.

Everyone has resources, but many of them remain hidden from us because we don’t make the effort to solve life’s puzzles. We look for someone “smarter” or “better” or “more suited” than us to do the tedious work. Just as you can’t have someone go to the gym and do your workout for you, you can’t benefit from life’s puzzles by not attempting to solve them yourself.

You can certainly enlist help, but you have to be part of the process to get the gift of resourcefulness.

Uncovering resourcefulness is simply giving yourself the opportunity to respond to life’s mysteries, rather than react to them. Reactions take you to familiar ground – nowhere; responses make you resourceful.

It’s true that you’ll never get out of life alive, but you’ll remain alive your entire life if you are resourceful.

Take the time to interrupt your reactions to life’s mysteries, then wait for a response before acting. Then you’ll discover one of life’s mysterious delights – your resourcefulness.

All the best,

John

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The Grasshopper asked a thought provoking question the other day: “Are you looking for what you’ve lost OR what you haven’t found yet?”

Normally I don’t know what triggers these messages from out of the blue, but this time I think I do.

I saw a Facebook posting the other day inviting me to listen to a new track from the forthcoming Diana Krall Album called, GLAD RAG DOLL. The song was an old, country flavored, slow waltz entitled, WIDE RIVER TO CROSS.

The song touched me on the first play, and then I played it again and again and these lyrics stuck in my head:

I’m only half way home

I gotta journey on

Where I’ll find

The things I have lost

We’ve all lost something or someone, and sometimes our journey is to find the things we have lost. There is another journey that, perhaps, we haven’t considered – Looking for what we haven’t found yet.

For me, there is a different feeling attached to each. Lost is a frantic feeling, and the search for what I haven’t found feels like hunger. “Lost” has the scary feeling of never being found, and “Found” is a knowing that something is there. I can smell it, but I just haven’t found it yet – like an aromatic bakery.

I think it’s useful to determine which of these you are looking for – Lost or Found.

If you are lost in lost, the chances of discovering what you haven’t yet found are greatly diminished. The search for found gets put on hold while you hold on to the frightening feelings of lost.

I can’t tell you what direction to head in – only this: Finding your way has the fresh smell of a brand new day.

If you pursue found, you’re less likely to get lost.

All the best,

John

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There is a worldwide myth that needs a challenge (at least I think so).

It’s the one of “Equal Measure” in relationships.

It’s my experience that, in a relationship, one person gives more. This applies to working and non-working relationships whether they be personal or business.

It really has to be this way or the relationship would have no movement. An equal measure relationship would be like a see-saw that was perfectly balanced on each end – both of you would be up in the air.

Perhaps you are tired of being the one who gives more. That’s totally understandable and it has a remedy, but not in the current relationship. If you attempt to adjust the roles so there is equal measure, two things are for sure:

1. The change will be temporary.

2. No one will be happy.

One remedy is being in another relationship where you give less.

“But I don’t want to be in another relationship,” you say. I say, “The balance of the relationship you are in is already set.” Attempting to change it would be like trying to change your blood type.

What to do? Recognize the reality that there is no lasting equal measure, and that efforts to make it so only strain a relationship.

Let’s pretend that you believe your mother or father loves your brother or sister more. Let’s even further pretend that it’s “true.” You can spend a good portion of your life looking for equal measure only to be thwarted at every turn. The sooner you accept the balance the way it is, the sooner you’ll feel movement rather than stagnation.

If this sounds like resignation to you, you need to be in a new relationship OR you need to remove the denigration from resignation and appreciate the relationship you have, the way it is.

Improving relationships is always a noble work in progress, and never is the end point equal measure. If equal measure is your goal, you have a recipe for disaster.

All the best,

John

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