We shall not cease from exploring,
And the end of our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
~T.S. Eliot
Life never stands still for us. It winds and spirals in great waves and cycles, sometimes taking us back to where we started, other times dropping us somewhere new and uncharted. My life, of late, has been one of rites of passage.
What I mean by that is that I have passed some personal milestones and ends of personal eras. The last of my grandparents passed away. The last of my children grew up and struck out on his own. I turned fifty. And now I have been called upon to help my mother get her things sifted through in preparation for her own new beginning. And I’m getting the cabin ready for sale.
This tiny cabin has been in our family for years. Situated on a lake in Montana, my grandparents made it their final home until they could not live unassisted any longer. When they left, it became a staying place for my sisters and I, and finally it is being used for storage of mom’s “stuff” – boxes and boxes that fill the rooms to jam-packed. This is what my sis and I will be sorting through in a couple of weeks.
Grandma and Grandpa's cabin in Montana.
I had occasion to spend a little time there a couple of weeks ago, wandering from room to room. Looking past all the “stuff,” I gazed instead at the memories. I remembered star gazing with Grandma, bundled against the cold, stretched out on deck chairs with drinks in our hands. I recalled my children sitting in the sunny living room, surrounded by soft, warm daylight and the warmer glow of being loved by family. I envisioned Grandma’s gardens and her eternal fight with the squirrels. Once again I saw Papa making smart cracks about Grandma’s cooking as he wandered on by.
Some of us at various times have tried to keep the cabin in the family but now we know it is time to let this cycle come to a close. Thank goodness for photos and video and memories. For even though we occasionally have to let go and be swept into the next cycle, it’s still good to look back from time to time to see where we’ve been.
Every now and then you see something in nature that sets you back on your heels in awe. Nature has her rules and her ways of doing things, right? Survival of the fittest. Ordered seasons. Weather patterns. And generally, one species of animal is rivaled with – or at least uninterested in – the other.
But is all that changing? Does it seem to you that we’re seeing more and more cases of oddly-paired animal couples popping up here and there? The little hippo who has bonded with a giant tortoise. The dog that is raising tiger cubs. Are animals somehow evolving, just like (I hope) we are? More importantly, what can we learn from this?
I used to have a young, upwardly-mobile coworker who took great pride in her “multitasking” abilities. She would type while she was talking on the phone, at the same time keeping an eye on her instant messaging and what was going on in the office around her. Whenever I talked to her I got the distinct impression she was not really hearing me (how could she be?) and everything she did was halfway, filled with errors and omissions. Let’s just say attention to detail was not her strong point.
I, on the other hand, take pride in my precision. It may take me a little longer to get a job done, but it is done really well when I do. This saves a lot of time in the long run because when a task is done right the first time, it can be put aside and not revisited. My young coworker was constantly having to go back and fix what she’d missed or messed up on.
Therefore, I was extremely gratified to see Mike Elgan’s recent article entitled Work Ethic 2.0: Attention Control. I hate to say I told you so, but – yeah… Mike says:
A person who works six hours a day but with total focus has an enormous advantage over a 12-hour-per-day workaholic who’s “multi-tasking” all day, answering every phone call, constantly checking Facebook and Twitter, and indulging every interruption. Read the rest here.
Try though we might, we can really only focus properly on one thing at a time. Doing too many things at once causes them all to suffer. If you give your undivided attention to the task at hand and get it done right the first time, it will save you a ton of time, frustration and embarrassment in the long run.
To have lived well,
Laughed often and loved much;
To have gained the respect
Of intelligent men
And the love of children;
To have filled a niche
And accomplished a task;
To have left the world better -
Whether by an improved poppy,
A perfect poem or a rescued soul;
To have appreciated earth’s beauty
And not failed to express it;
To have looked for the best in others,
And to have given the best of yourself.
That is achievement.
Sometimes you just can’t think of something to write, right? So I dug up an old post from last year. Enjoy!
Originally posted March 2007:
Sir Richard Branson is someone I admire for his daringness, adventurousness and smarts. I devoured his biography last year (it reads like an adventure novel) and just finished his latest book called Screw It, Let’s Do It, a small book of life lessons. Here are a couple of quotes I like that illustrate the kind of guy Sir Richard is.
“I was brought up to think we could all change the world. I believed that it was our duty to help others and to do good when we could. I’m sure my headmaster was stunned when I wrote a long report about how he could run the school better. I ended grandly with the words, ‘I would be very interested in your views on this, and any money saved could be put towards my next plan…’
“He didn’t laugh, or even cane me for my cheek. He handed back my report and said dryly, ‘Very good, Branson. Put it in the school magazine.’
“Instead, I left school and started my own magazine.”
…and…
“You don’t have to fill your time rushing about in order to use your time wisely… Bill Gates – the world’s top charity donor – said his staff could spend two hours gazing into space, as long as their minds were working, and Albert Einstein came up with the theory of relativity in his head without paper or pen.”
Sometimes you’ll be doing something random in life and all of a sudden you’re surrounded by people who form an unexpected community. Maybe you’ll be stuck on a bus in traffic and someone will tell a joke and soon everyone is smiling and talking.
Here is a lovely little story about just such a thing. One man, Shel Israel, is grocery shopping one day when he finds out he is a grandfather. He says, “Slowly, I realized that my eyes were misting up. And then I was bawling like Isla [the new baby] must have done a few hours earlier. I stood there wondering if I could shoplift a Kleenex when some guy came up to me, concerned, asking what was wrong. I told him I had just learned I had a new granddaughter. He stared for second, then, beaming, stuck out his hand.”
A couple of days after writing the previous post I was walking through Bankers Hall on my lunch break when I came across a little booth. On the table I saw a small solar panel attached to what looked like a tiny car battery and some lights. I had almost passed the booth when I brought myself up short and backed up to have a look. The posters on the wall told me the topic of this display was EXACTLY what I had just written about!
I stopped to chat with a cheerful and enthusiastic fellow who I later found out is Dr. Dave Irvine-Halliday, the man behind Light Up The World. We talked a bit about LUTW, about Scotland, and about how to get this project onto the radar screen of big players who could help (yes, I will be writing to Oprah). I spent so much time chatting I used up my lunch break and had to forgo my errands for the day and get back to work, but I didn’t mind. It just seemed like more than coincidence that I was there talking to this sincere fellow with the beautiful dreams.
I got paid today, Dr. Dave. I’m heading right over to your site to make a donation!
A friend of mine wrote an interesting blog post about an exciting new technological trend of the future – electricity. Free (or nearly free) electricity, that is. I’ve read and thought about the endless possibilities before, but today I realized that not everyone has awakened to this concept. So let me elaborate.
I believe free energy is going to be what levels the playing field for us all.
Imagine if we had no more electricity or gas bills. Ever. I don’t know what you’re paying, but that’d be an extra $400 per month for me. Four hundred dollars that I could do other, more worthwhile things with. Why, that’s $4800 per year! I could get that laser eye surgery I’ve been thinking about. I could pay off my credit card. I could give more to my favourite charities – you name it.
And for folks in developing countries – imagine. If they could cook a meal without having to breathe toxic fumes from burning cow dung; or could stay up past dark to read or study; or power a water pump or power tools or whatever… Don’t you think THAT would change the future for millions of people in Africa and India and South America? The possibilities are endless.
Most folks haven’t caught on to this yet, but here is one innovative company that is on the cutting edge. I have been watching these guys for a couple of years now (mostly wishing they would HURRY UP and bring their product to market). They have invented a remarkable generator that runs perpetually, using the natural attraction/repulsion of magnets. They’re called Lutec and as soon as they start selling, I plan to be one of their first buyers. I’ll pop one of these babies into our garage, hook it up, and the rest will be history.
Hubby will be relieved when I quit nagging about leaving the lights on…
If you read my story called Pay $5 forward, you’ll know that I’ve been carrying a crumpled $5 bill around in my coat pocket for a while. I’ve been waiting for just the right opportunity to pay it forward since the day it was given to me by a dear little Native woman on the train. Well, you’ll be glad to know it went out yesterday. I was waiting on the street corner downtown at lunch time, when another little Native woman walked through crowds of people, directly to me in a bee-line, as if she’d spotted me from a mile away. I watched her approach and somehow I knew. Sure enough, she asked if I had some change for a cup of coffee. Without hesitation I said, “I sure do,” and dug the bill out of my pocket and placed it in her hand. Her eyes glowed with gratitude and last I saw her, she was heading to the nearby McDonalds for some lunch. It warmed my heart.
My dad said his auntie, also a little half-Native woman, would have said my experience on the train was a visit from the Elders. He said perhaps it was a visit from Aunt Alice, who always carried wads of $5 bills around with her (she liked to bet on the horses). He said maybe she was passing along her gift of second sight to me. Thank you, Aunt Alice. I am truly grateful.
Telling my story about meeting the lady on my commute home the other day (Pay $5 forward) made me think of another cool experience I had on the train. I think this commuting thing may wind up being kind of fun, after all. I may learn some stuff. Anyway…
I got on the train after work one night and found a seat next to a tattooed young fellow, who was chatting with his friend sitting facing us. I could tell from their conversation they were returning home from college or something and when the tattooed fellow wondered aloud about where to eat in Chinook I said, “Joey Tomato’s is always a good bet.” They enthusiastically agreed and the decision was made.
Since the ice had been broken with such sound advice, I was henceforth included in their conversation. We talked and talked about movies and Star Trek, Star Wars and George Lucas, and captains and kings. We discussed the age old question of which captain was best – Kirk or Picard? (As an older female Trekkie, I made the observation that they all had their strengths and that I personally liked Janeway – then had to briefly endure their derision.) I even offered a word of wisdom on a matter of the heart that blew them away. “I’m going to remember that and quote it,” said the Mr. Tattoo.
Too soon, it was time for them to get off and leave me musing. How often do you see young fellows like that, who are so open to talking to a middle-aged lady on a train? I thought how some folks might have been turned off by all the tattoos the one young man was sporting and what a pleasurable conversation I’d have missed out on if I’d been one of those folks. I thought about how humour and smarts and advanced thought can come in all kinds of packages and that even we “mature” ones can learn a thing or two from the young. Hanging out with these two young fellows gave me hope for the future.
