My 500 Words

I know a simple process that helps me make really good decisions. It requires three basic steps. Understand the question. Obtain the information to answer that question. Know where to turn when I get lost during steps one and two. I avoid bad decisions when I really understand the question before me. When I take shortcuts oversimplify the problem I inevitably err. Many will have filled out the paper that presented simple questions like your name, date, simple math problems and the like, only to get to the bottom of the page and find the instruction that told you to ignore all of the other questions and to then do something like make three dots on the back of the page. Most people overlook the instruction at the beginning that says to read all the instructions before they begin. That oversight and overconfidence led to their very mistake. Most of the time, when we think we already know the answer we try to solve problems we see before we understand the question before us. If we...

While sitting in a hospital waiting room I found myself across from my beautiful 16-year-old niece as we both silently pondered the significance of why were there. Knowing that we all have fears I decided to share with her some of my most deeply held fears that I am certain will persist throughout my life. Many have tried to dissuade me from these beliefs and each have met the unsavory taste of failure in their attempts. I esteem them greatly so anyone who desires to disagree will simply ignore the brutal truth. I asked my niece, "Are you afraid of the dark?" "No, she said" "How about basements?" "No. Well dark basements," she hesitantly admitted. I now knew that I had a kindred spirit and a bond that would never be broken with my oldest niece and example for my own daughter. I confessed my own fear for basements and how the light dispels the fear. What surprised me was that she didn't know the source of the fear; I had believed tha...

A dear friend teased his children telling them that once they went to bed the adults would get out the good cookies. Children everywhere fantasize about the mystery of night and very early morning. Unrealized experience fuels an innate drive toward fulfillment. Ecstasy occurs when experience exceeds expectation, but ecstasy can be fleeting. Contentment comes when experience shapes expectation and fulfillment is found in the moment and in memory. Childhood hopes of all night fiestas and the mental image of good cookies inspired me to want to stay up all night. Post midnight consciousness seldom occurred because I got tired and fell asleep. In my high school years I would stay up late, but 2 a.m. found me consuming textbooks rather than tasty treats; my expectations unmet, the ideal of staying awake disappeared and I learned to cherish sleep over delusional dreams. How little did I know? As a parent I found nothing better than 2 a.m. Early morning moments create challenges, but o...

They say you need water to survive. So why has water almost killed me, twice? I'll admit that the question is misleading, I often indulge in mental bantering about the oddities and idiosyncrasies of experience. Common occurrences may be random events but I look for unseen connections. The power of inductive reasoning may be the very source of fears and hopes and nightmares and dreams. It's really unfair to blame the water for my potential demise and further consideration does suggest a different culprit that is more appropriately blamed. I attended a father and son's campout at a nearby KOA. They had a swimming pool and I looked forward to playing in the water. Unfortunately I had not yet learned to swim but I was fine with that because the shallow end was plenty big for a child my size. I splashed and played and bobbed about. I tried to do some simple strokes but I lacked the confidence to just go for it and let the water lift me up. All was well until I neared the ro...

Farnsworth Elementary was built within walking distance of McDonalds and the local grocery store. In second or third grade, my class went on a field trip to learn about the different ways modern humans acquire our food. My mother had been so fantastic that I assumed that food came from the table, refrigerator and lunchbox. I have so many siblings that I would stay home with them while my mom went to the store and as a very large family we never ate out. Thus stores and restaurants seemed about as foreign as any  country. I found the grocery store pretty boring and was unable to really watch anything that they tried to explain in the meat department. Curiously, I was excited when our field trip continued to McDonalds. In fact, when I entered that McDonalds, it was the first time I had entered any restaurant in my entire life. It should be clear that my knowledge of dining out lay somewhere between limited and none. About the only thing I knew about the place was that it sold hambu...

I was pretty young when I learned how to ride a bike. I watched my older brothers and sisters and their friends as they would speed up and down the street and around the block. I didn't have my own bicycle but I could use one of theirs as long as they weren't going anywhere. One problem I had to overcome was their bikes were too big for me and I couldn't get started normally. I would have to stand on the steps to the house, step over the bike bar and rest my foot on the perfectly positioned pedal. Then I would essentially stand on my left foot forcing the pedal down. The walkway from the porch had a downward slope and that gave me a couple of seconds to coast toward the street as I got my other foot on the other pedal. When everything went right, I was off and riding. When things didn't go so well, I learned how to fall toward the grass and I never recall getting hurt because of that. A much more tricky feat was the stopping. Keeping your balance on a moving bicycle i...

It only takes a phone call. You stop whatever you are doing and suddenly what's important in life become abundantly clear. Your friends and colleagues immediately take care of the stuff that needs to get done and you tend to the people who matter. Time becomes your best friend and your worst enemy as every moment with loved ones transcends the material worth of accumulated possessions, wealth and things. Every moment becomes the greatest treasure and you pray that the joy might persist and never cease. Memory paints the poignancy of the now as reflections from the past color the precious present and project a hopeful future. When hope and fear teeter on the fulcrum of uncertainty, a battle rages within the heart and mind of the human soul that simultaneously comforts and sears. Hope surges with every positive word, thought and prayer; it's truly indescribable. Yet a cough or minor change reveals the fragility of hope and opens the door to distress. In those times you discover...

I used to live on the streets of Madrid. My situation shouldn't cause concern because I always had the keys to an apartment. My responsibilities required that my companion and I spend the day, essentially from ten in the morning to 10 at night, out and about and meeting with people. Walking to and from our various appointments, hopping on buses, hailing taxis and punching metro passes resulted in an intimate knowledge of the city. To this day, I know Madrid better than any other city on the planet, with or without a map. When you live on the street in a densely populated city you overhear conversations and encounter a multitude of languages. You also come across lost people. You might think that the people who get lost are foreigners and travelers. You'd be wrong. It turns out that most madrileños do not carry maps. They figure they'll know where they're going once they get off the metro. When they emerge to the street every sense of direction flees. They start walkin...

Whenever we assess our situation we should consider the difference between improvement and change. Normally we will take a look at our present behavior and try to identify the things we can do differently to improve. Almost every politician runs on the premise that the one thing we need is change. Another common axiom claims that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. So a seeming natural and necessary conclusion is that if we want to improve we must change. As I watch and study child development and assess my own personal progress I find merit in challenging that generally accepted definition of insanity. Repeating the same thing and expecting a different result is less Quixotic and more Einsteinian. I don't recall my own infancy and the process that my parents used to teach me to eat with a spoon and a fork. I suspect that I traveled a similar path of development that my children took. As parents, my wife and I repeated the same process...

I have a difficult time accepting a causative link between violent video games and violent behavior. I have not conducted scientifically valid experiments nor have I reviewed the recent literature on the issue. I don’t even consider myself an expert in the area. You see, my personal, and hence anecdotal, history confirms for me that the seeds of violence lie within us and we choose whether to act on those tendencies with or without video games. While a young boy, our neighborhood used to set up rock fights; and we used real, hard and throwable rocks. Seriously, we were all friends and we would divide up in teams, set up boundaries and create basic rules of engagement. We set up our camps at a distance where it would be very difficult for someone to throw a rock from the enemy camp and actually hit you or one of your comrades. Even if the throw was on target you had plenty of time to step out of the way.  Each team had a prison area and if you were captured you had to remain in...

I share my father with thirteen siblings. As a father of four, I spend about as much time as you would guess just trying to figure out how he did all of the things that he needed to do to provide for us. I still stand amazed by the very long hours he worked to provide for the things that his very large family needed. My last name may be Newton but I can't do the math because the equation just doesn't seem to balance. Throughout my childhood, my dad worked in sales. I know that he had other jobs before I was born, but I will always think of him as a sewing machine salesman and repair guy. He managed a store, back in the day when they had Singer stores in the malls. His income was based on the sales he closed and there were times that as a manager of the store he would work longer hours, rather than hire another sales person, to help make financial ends meet at home. In my pre-school years, and in the summers I would often stay up late and watch Gunsmoke with my dad after...

Every volunteer for the 2002 Olympic or Paralympic Games in Salt Lake City received training to improve our interaction with the diverse people coming to this international event. Most of the training described common sense good behavior. But my instructor taught one very powerful idea that continues to influence my relationship with others. The core idea states that people are people before anything else. In English we say "I am" to describe both inherent and immutable traits as well as passing and temporary conditions. I am an attorney, doctor, athlete or boss is expressed the same as I am sick, cold, hungry or sad. But saying that someone is sad versus being a sad person carries a drastically different meaning. Whenever we emphasize the adjective we minimize the humanity. They trained us to see people as people first and to use adjectives only as needed to accommodate individual situations.  If we were dealing with someone from Sweden  or someone from Japan our behavio...

It may be true that nothing exceeds the beauty of a sleeping baby, but who doubts that we humans are made to move? Even an infant, from the moments after birth, begins to stretch her arms and legs, preparing her body and muscles for the day when coordination will allow her to crawl, then stand and finally walk. Parents anticipate a child's first steps with anticipation and dread. The fantastic milestone marks the end of infancy and sets the stage for a lifetime of exploration. It doesn't  take long for walking to turn into running. I introduced my children to running by playing soccer, tennis and tag. The resulted as a natural consequence from the fun we were having. Perhaps my affinity for sports like tennis and baseball comes from the regular pauses that permit the enjoyment of the outdoor surroundings. I have felt a profound joy from the breeze on my face on a warm and calm day. I realize that I am the very creator of the wind as I move through time and space, cutting th...

I have undergone three minor surgeries that required general anesthesia; repairs on each knee to repair tears on the meniscus and one surgery to straighten a deviated septum. Prior to each surgery, medical personnel reviewed the risks of surgery and the relatively minor but consequentially significant risk of death because of anesthesia.  Fortunately, like most patients, I have awakened from each journey going under. After my first knee surgery I agreed to participate in a pain medication study. Seriously, in order to control for the effect that family and loved one can have on pain management, following my procedure, I was placed into an ambulance and taken to an undisclosed location. At some point, they called my wife and gave her an address where she could come and pick me up. My only memory of that event before finally coming to in the testing recovery center is a cloudy memory of being placed into an ambulance, or maybe a van. But I really think I was lying down. I'm not act...

The biggest truth or the biggest lie exists in the proposition of mutual exclusivity. How many tensions, conflicts and even wars are fought because if one thing is right the other is wrong? I regularly and often find comfort in the black and white dichotomy of choice. Whenever I can define one thing as right and another thing as wrong, choice becomes very simple and tremendously rewarding. Results of actions become quite clear as I can perceive the connection between my actions and the consequences that follow. My mind is a curious place to live because it is full of regular and constant contradictions. I believe in the concept of moral agency defined as an ability to choose between right and wrong. I further believe that regardless of the quality of my prior choices I possess the capacity to change. Not only do I believe in the capacity to change I sense a moral imperative to improve. The gift of my existence demands that I do more than simply enjoy what benefits I have been given. ...

My childhood music experience was limited to Primary songs and hymns in church. I also remember some elementary teachers who played the guitar and taught us simple songs to perform for our parents during assemblies. My father had played the guitar when he was younger, but I only heard him play a few times in my early youth. I think it's fair to say that my biggest exposure to music was the radio. When I heard good music, I knew I liked it, but I never imagined myself as a music maker. Then in fifth grade we were invited to go onto the school stage and meet with the band teacher. I remember thinking that it was going to be a lame exercise and that I would have rather played at recess. The teacher told us that we were going experiment with the different kinds of instruments that were in the school band. It was like he was speaking a foreign language because I didn't even know what the different instruments were. We didn't have a piano in our house. A couple of my sisters ...

I love the efficiency of the Madrid Metro. It's interconnected web facilitates travel for millions of riders every day. Like most European cities, Madrid developed without significant long-term planning resulting in few parallel streets. The haphazard layout of every neighborhood makes public transit planning a difficult problem, especially when traveling overground. By developing a transit system on tracks under the ground, the Spanish capital's subway system avoids the zigs and zags on the surface and allows for an easier trip from point A to B. This design requires passengers to navigate numerous stairs and because not everyone is fit enough to use the stairs most of the travelers opt for the moving stairways to get to the train platforms. Whether in a subway like Madrid or an international airport we have all been helped along by the invention of Jesse W. Reno. His escalator and its future improvements have eased us all to new heights. While it's easy to forget ever...

Take time to be still. This requires more than resting. It means more than relaxation. Being still requires a concentrated and concerted effort to find a place of peace. Being still is a close cousin to meditation. Sometimes meditation in more akin to contemplation where we quiet our bodies and our minds allowing for a more free flow of thought as we seek answers to our deepest questions. I have richly benefitted from insights gained through quiet contemplation practiced by Spanish mystics like San Juan de la Cruz, Teresa de Jesús and Fray Luis de León. There have been many others who have shared a greater light and understanding through their journeys toward a brighter knowledge. Some are well known, but many avoid the stimulation of fame and share their wisdom in intimate communion amongst friends. The contradictory experience remains a feat that I strive to replicate. I have found a pure and overwhelming ecstasy in the midst of an all-encompassing peace. The two states seem as...

Almost everyone opines on the proper role of schools and how to best educate our children. During legislative deliberations these debates reach jet-engine level decibels of cacophonous discord because of infinite divergent views. Most education plans begin with simple ideas that become complicated and potentially self-defeating once the general idea is reduced to a written plan. If you believe that policy makers are crazy and stupid because of the plans that result, I urge you to draft the language of a policy initiative. It is harder than you believe and quickly can get out of control. You will find that the impossibility of any program increases proportionally to the size of the population the plan will serve. Any plan that is administered and designed for a single classroom will be more effectively implemented than one that tries to serve an entire district or especially a nation. The inability to recognize that they cannot make a program to leave no one behind and ensure...

I was exhausted. It was the late summer of 1987 and I had just finished eight meeting in five cities in six days. Never before nor since have I attempted such a rigorous schedule. Though productive, beneficial, and necessary the pace was simply unsustainable. I knew the trip had taken its toll. Usually I excel at name recall and personalization of discourse by using minute facts gleaned from previous interactions. This quality of recollection generally requires a genuine interest in the moment the event occurs so that the memory remains true in the recounting. Remembering correctly becomes critical because someone in your audience was also there. In the first seven meetings I was on my game. But during the last meeting I could barely keep straight who I was. It didn't go well and it was all I could do to get out of there and get to the trains station. With joyful relief I settled into my seat for the 300 kilometer train ride home. It was already 10:30 p.m. and here was no way I...

This morning I was riding in the dark and in the rain. Neither was in my plan, but bothe were out of my control. The darkness was caused by Daylight Saving Time, that politically determined period where change our clocks because we can't control the sun. The rain came because of the convergence of meteorological phenomena including atmospheric pressure, humidity and temperature. I ride at the mercy of nature for over it I have no control, at best I have a response. This morning as I rode in the dark and rain, that has now become snow, I changed my route to join up with the train. As I travel in my yellow, red and black I should stand out; but no one pays attention. We sit together yet refuse to commune. We are all on the same track but lack a common destination; there are multiple stops and transfer points along the way. Although together we are not one. We are happenstance. Students have their books ajar. Workers get lost in their headphones. Those without text to read and...

I hear the same advice from almost everyone. It doesn't seem to matter whether they are family, friends, coworkers, or random strangers that I meet out and about; they all feel compelled to remind me to be careful. On a profound level, I appreciate the concern they show for my personal well being and safety. Those simple words and sincere expressions form an integral part of why I maintain such a strong hope in humanity and the wonderful future that awaits us. Almost all of us strive to make our world a little bit better and we tend to want what is best for those around us. I do my part to ease the concerns of these friends, family and strangers. Each morning as I select my wardrobe I make certain that I wear colors that could blind Chuck Norris. Whether it is brighter-than-the-sun yellow or I-think-I-ate-that-for-breakfast orange I always leave my house confident that if someone hits me, it will be on purpose. I say that as a joke because I don't think I have yet encount...

I find myself bombarded by a myriad of thoughts and impressions that I know are impossible to express in some predetermined number of words. Yet I am gratefully compelled to write and share in the hope and prayer that even simple words might act as triggers to inspire even grander thoughts for me and all who might encounter these thoughts. I believe that all things possess gifts and talents that exist to bring joy to themselves and others. The rich diversity in every Kingdom, Phyla, Class, Order, Family, Genus and  Species allows for our very existence. The circle of life requires that everything is subordinate to something and superior to something else. Within that continual cycle we simultaneously occupy positions where we must act and be acted upon so that the system functions at an optimal level. Fortunately we are able to find, within this apparent contradiction, born of necessity, profound experiences of wonder, surprise and pleasure. Included in the circumstances th...

I am a lifelong fan of the Cincinnati Reds. In 1991, I married a fan of the Boston Red Sox. Because of "The Curse" I felt confident that our divergent loyalties would pose no problems for our relationship. I just had to remember to keep any mention of the name Buckner to a minimum. The Big Red Machine of the early to mid 70s made it easy for a young boy who loved baseball to choose a favorite team. I felt a bit like a traitor when I was selected to the Expos for my local little-league team. I tried to become an Expos fan, but they never gave me a reason to make the switch. I remained and continue to be a devoted fan of the Reds. My loyalty continues in good years and bad. There is no way I can compare myself to Chicago Cubs fans and the "maybe next year" phenomenon that occurs every July. Anyone from Chicago can probably tell you the exact number of years since they won a World Series, but I am pretty sure it's now more than a century. I obviously lack the...