Glimpses from the Journey

One of the more sobering realities of aging is realizing the people we often remember no longer exist. I recently happened across a photograph from my high school days. There I was, along with classmates, most of whose faces I would still recognize, despite having not seen them in years.

Captain Kirk is facing a powerful adversary that seems to hold every advantage. Even Spock concludes there's no logical path to success. If this was chess, it would be checkmate.

Jack Nicholson is well known for the classic line, "You can't handle the truth!" As Colonel Nathan R. Jessep, his philosophy was that only individuals who had his moral superiority, duty and background were appropriate purveyors of the world's realities. Others beneath him should get only the information that he deemed was good for them.

As a marketer by profession, I understand the reason most fine restaurants don't use bright interior lighting. It's very intentional. Softer, dimmer lighting creates a more inviting atmosphere and relaxes people.

A man rushes toward a bus stop just in time to see the doors close and the bus pull away without him. He throws his hands up in frustration and mutters something about how the whole day is now messed up. Someone standing nearby glances at the schedule posted on the sign and calmly tells him, "Another one will be here in ten minutes." What had felt like a small calamity a moment earlier suddenly didn't seem quite so significant.

When I was in sixth grade, my parents explained to me that I needed braces. I didn't fully understand what that meant. I knew it involved going to someone called an orthodontist an hour away once a month, missing a half day of school each time, and riding with a couple of friends to the appointments.

I've become increasingly aware of how often my mind drifts beyond the day I'm actually living. I can spend a lot of my day moving ahead to what might happen next month or next year. I might also circle back to conversations or events from yesteryear that are long gone and now a permanent part of the past.

Aristotle observed that "nature abhors a vacuum." Cartoonist Gary Larson (The Far Side) once took it to the absurd, implying that maybe nature simply abhors a vacuum cleaner, but I'll go with Aristotle's version for this one. It's typically true that if we create a space that's empty of everything, including air, then something nearby will be pulled in to fill it. The void doesn't remain unoccupied.

There are more police in our lives than we might first realize. Some of them even carry badges—but most don't. They show up as supervisors who ask for updates.

In a previous lesson, I wrote about the well-known Saturday Night Live skit where the solution to every musical problem was simple: I gotta have...more cowbell. It was funny because it felt familiar. We've all been in rooms where someone responds to a challenge not by rethinking their approach but by turning up the volume on what's worked for them before.

It's a question we learn to ask at an early age. Some of us perfected it from the back seat of the car, watching as the miles passed and wondering why the destination always felt so much farther away than we'd expected. Years later, we ask it while standing in long lines, waiting for a restaurant table, or anticipating a return call.

For most of our lives, we've been taught to think of intelligence in very narrow terms. At some point in school, most of us were assigned a number, a percentile, or a label, and over time we learned—often without realizing it—to let that measurement shape how we size up ourselves and others. We decide who is "smart," who's merely capable, and who might not even be worth listening to at all.

Have you ever considered how rarely success is a solo act—yet how often it gets treated like one? Most of us can point to periods in our lives where things went very well. Relationships bloomed.

I recently listened to actor Gary Sinise reflecting on his role as Lieutenant Dan in the 1994 movie, Forrest Gump. What stood out to me wasn't any "big reveal" on the movie but something far more applicable to each of our lives. Sinise explained that he had no real sense of the scope of the project he was part of while it was being filmed.

In Peter Jackson's movie of Tolkien's Fellowship of the Ring, an aging Bilbo Baggins describes himself as feeling "thin, like butter scraped over too much bread." His line fits with what I hear routinely from too many others these days—tired, stretched, and working hard just to hold things together. Life keeps adding slices of bread, but we still have our same daily stick of butter. Be it work, family responsibilities, the challenges that can accompany aging, or simply the dizzying pace of things around us, the result is the same, and we can grow weary.

What if the story you think you've been writing...really isn't yours at all? Leaving the house recently, I received a text from EPD (David Daniel) asking how I'd been. And since a Joe Walsh clip had just played on my phone (Life's Been Good to Me So Far) the combined events got me to thinking.

Where in your life have you settled for "just right" — and what would it look like to press on instead? Most of us don't spend much time thinking about the dangers of becoming too successful in life. "Failure," of course, is a different story.

It was a Colorado winter morning more than twenty years ago. The kind of day that starts gray and stays that way — cold, wet, and full of that mix of snow and sleet that makes you question why you ever agreed to drive anywhere. For those who read my book, it felt like a Wednesday.

One of my all-time favorite movies is Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. If you've not seen it, there's a part where the two main characters have planned to rob a train, only to have those plans foiled by Mr. E.

In The Princess Bride, farm boy Westley shares a difficult truth to the young woman who would eventually become his true love. "Life is pain, highness," he says. "Anyone who says differently is selling something." Hmmm.

I recently heard a speaker share his experience of watching the men's U.S. Open semifinals on tape delay. The match was intense—neck-and-neck through repeated set points.

Desperately Seeking Susan (1985) was about a woman named Susan (i.e., Madonna) who was longing for a life that seemed more exciting and meaningful than her own. I can't recommend a movie I never saw, but I always thought the title was a good one. In my research I saw no one who described this movie as "deep," but I did see where Siskel and Ebert gave it one thumbs up and one thumbs down, if that rings a bell.

Earlier today, I was visiting on the phone with my friend, Gene, who turns 99 years old next month. He and I've known each other my entire life, since he was first a friend of my parents. Gene is one of those rare people who can walk into a room full of complete strangers and leave with a dozen new acquaintances.

J.P. and I are both retired and meet regularly for coffee. Seemingly without fail, our conversations eventually turn to someone we both know who is battling a serious problem—health setbacks, financial struggles, relationship challenges, etc.

Some things in life sound impressive but simply don't exist. Unicorns, for example. Or sugar-free desserts that actually taste great and are healthy.

One of the questions I've asked many people over the years when I've watched them having a bad day at work is, "Are we having fun yet?" The first question was meant to simply lighten the moment, earning at least some semblance of a smile. But my follow up would be, "Do you enjoy your job?" It's a very basic question but it's led to some very interesting responses. Most pause to think before answering.

In the now-legendary sketch, Christopher Walken plays a fictionalized version of music producer Bruce Dickinson, guiding Blue Öyster Cult through a recording of their 1976 hit "(Don't Fear) The Reaper." Will Ferrell, playing an enthusiastic but slightly offbeat cowbell player (Gene Frenkle), bangs away wildly in the background. As the band protests the excessive cowbell, Walken keeps inserting his now-famous line: "I got a fever... and the only prescription is more cowbell." The sketch lives on as one of SNL's most beloved bits—not just because it's absurdly funny, but because it taps into something deeply human.

Across my years in higher education, I watched a quiet but persistent shift in institutional values. Achievement, excellence, and performance—once understood as the lifeblood of the academic enterprise—began to take a back seat to other values: inclusion, equity, and emotional safety. These are worthy pursuits.

It happened ten years ago, but I still think about it. Tammy and I had invited some friends over for dinner—just a simple, relaxed Friday evening, mostly sitting around the kitchen table. One of the couples brought along their young daughter, Grier, who was about two years old.

The joke, as I heard it growing up, was about a man who joined a monastery where every monk had taken a strict vow of silence. The only exception? Once every ten years, each monk was allowed to meet with the abbot and say just two words.

Growing up, I remember listening to Frank Sinatra's iconic anthem, "My Way." It's long been a favorite for so many from the older generations who prided themselves on independence, self-determination, and forging their own paths—no matter what others may have thought. The lyrics are strong and retrospectively defiant: "I did it my way." There can be something admirable in that, especially when it comes to standing firm in your values, making tough decisions, or taking responsibility for life's outcomes. But in today's world, the "my way" mindset has gone from inspiring anthem to default operating system.