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I’m 47 years old. That’s young to some and really old to others.

I am a cut above the rest when it comes to problem solving and skills. I’m very good with my hands. I make good decisions. In short, I am an employer’s greatest hope for a productive employee that will make money for the company.

That is what I have done all my life. I have been brilliant for someone else’s pocket book.

I was once on my way to being very well off financially. I partnered with a friend to build homes in West Virginia. We were having great success. We were well on our way. That is when the coal mines in West Virginia went out on strike for an entire year in the late 1970’s. Their economy crashed and burned along with our dreams.

Now, I’m stuck in the rat race. I could have lived life. But I chose to work life.

This article is a sad extension of my mid-life crisis.

This article is also a proclamation of new direction–the acceptance of a challenge. It is also to issue a challenge to those of you in my condition and a message or warning to those of you who are younger, especially if you are just starting your adult career.

Here it is in a nutshell: Live life, don’t work life.

I have told my daughter to pursue what she loves and hope to get paid doing it.

You don’t want to pursue money, things, and power. Yes, there are benefits to these things. But the yield isn’t happiness–at least not the kind that was in the dream.

What is the condition I am in that is so terrible? Mostly that I have things that force me to make a certain amount of money to keep them. I earn this money doing things I don’t love. This makes my work a chore that is all about having things. And things don’t yield happiness. The net result is an un-fulfilling life. I’m working life. I’m not living life. Beyond that, my brilliance is making my employer the bulk of the money my effort returns.

This brings us to the second part of the challenge. Work for yourself. At least get the bulk of the return for your effort. This is your life you’re giving away.

So, this isn’t a complete list by far. But this is a challenge and a warning that will bring you a happy life.

Pursue what you love.
Hope to get paid doing what you love.
Work for yourself, or seek the highest benefit for your effort.

Cap these life pursuits off with maintaining your spiritual self, and you have the tools for a happy life.

Regards.

PS. Don’t worry if you don’t get paid well doing what you love. You’ll still be happy. Doing what you love is more important to happiness than having a bunch of stuff.

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When my father died last month, it made me think more about death and dying.

I don’t mean to be morbid. I’ve gone through several phases with this now.

First was a certain disbelief. This was followed with just being numb. Then, I talked about it to the point that the emotion was overcome by the commonness of it.

It’s been a sad reality.

Not to be funny, but death is just so final. It’s the ultimate can’t-do-over.

It makes you not want to mess up. Every moment passes only once. The few seconds you just spent clicking here and reading to this point in this article will never happen again. You may have another similar experience–But, this moment is gone forever.

All this thinking about death and dying has brought me to a really weird, undesirable conclusion.

I would like to say we have a choice, but we don’t.

We will die one of two ways. Thus the title: Two ways to die.

I’m not talking about the method of death: some illness or physical calamity or failure. I’m talking about the general circumstance of death and dying.

I don’t like it, but here it is:

You will either watch everyone you know die, or, you will die first.

They can’t rightly be called options, but plainly stated: you’re either dying first or watching everyone else die. It isn’t any better when you flip it.

I guess the best of pain and living would be to die somewhere in the middle. Then you live a little longer and only have to watch half of everyone die.

This gets ridiculous fast.

The only real choice in the matter is about how we live. The death part doesn’t change. Even if you believe in life after death, that death part really sucks. And the part leading up to it isn’t that great either.

So make the most of what is good and worthy while you have it. It will be gone.

Hope for somewhere in the middle for dying. But change what you can control.

What can you control? All the life part you’re living right now.

Like, what are you going to do now–I mean, right now?

Click to another site? Email this to a friend as a sick joke? Post this to your own blog and spread a sick joke?

These are some of a million things you might do in the next few moments.

I hope that’s the best use of your next few moments. You sure wouldn’t want to waste them.

Hug your wife and kids. Hug your mom and dad. Eat out whenever you can.

Honor God and man with all that belongs to them. Prioritize some fun into your life. Take a trip. Plant a garden. Send a card.

Don’t keep doing anything that causes regret. Find a handle to overcome bad habits. Create a place for peace in your life. Think about good things.

Regards.

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I realize each culture has developed a certain set of things that we don’t consider appropriate to do in public. Many of these are based on common moral values consistent within most societies. Others are considered appropriate among a smaller group, perhaps a nation, a global region, a religion, or an even smaller set of people bound by a common affiliation or tradition.

The point is appropriate behavior varies greatly from one group to another.

Ok, most of us have a belief system that we use to dictate our choices in life and how we feel about others and their actions. Our belief system is largely comprised within the boundaries set by appropriateness with the group where we function.

The separation between our groups is easily defined by these variations. They become the markers of our cultures, religions, and of all such groups. Indeed, these divisions are the lines that form the groups.

So, the groups are perpetuated by the very things they teach. Without the tradition, the group ceases to exist. Without the group, the tradition ceases to exist. A culture is the epitome of a self sustaining cycle.

Yes, we are as exact a copy as our group could make us.

What then of the individual? I mean, the deepest color blue, that you were born to be, seems altogether dark gray as expressed through the filter of your group. How do we strike a balance that propels our unique qualities to the greatness of their potential without pressing the boundaries of our group toward annihilation?

Well, we can’t. The developing structure of a group, indeed the reason we have more than one group, is the stretching and extremes that are inherent when blue shines forth as the bluest blue it can be. We call these people among us, leaders.

Let me pose this to you. Are you being gray or blue? To be plain, are you fake? To what degree do you color yourself for social acceptance?

I’m fully aware that the eccentric aren’t often followed as leaders. You can’t be extremely blue in a gray society without developing some blue-gray along the way. That is to say: you have to build a bridge from gray to blue for anyone to see it in a gray world. There are no leaders when no one follows.

The challenge is to shine. Broadcast your own kind of weird to the world so they can understand it and grow. Maybe I should have said, “your own kind of unique” instead of weird. But, it sure makes it blue. Doesn’t it?

Regards.

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When I first started working where I have worked for eighteen years now, there was a guy running one of the departments that used to really bug me.

The business we are in has an extreme pressure for quick turn-around. We are often called upon to stretch our manufacturing capabilities as well as push the threshold for how we assemble and what materials we use and what, exactly, we can do with materials and processes.

Well, back when I first started, I was mister gun-ho. I was always running around getting extreme things done in departments that had said, “We can’t do it.” I received several awards in those days and moved up quickly.

Over the years, I continued to make it happen. I still make it happen all these years later.

However, these days, I often say, “We can’t do it.”

I keep waiting for some young gun-ho person to come along and make things happen I just said, “We can’t do.”

After a while, you get tired of the seventy hour weeks.

Now, I’m just like the guy that used to really bug me. It’s a shame. But, we have to find a comfortable place to live for the long haul. I wonder what cool thing or process hasn’t been developed because we want to go home and hug the kids?

It’s one of those ironies of necessity for living a real life. We have to give it up to have it.

In some ways, I still long for the days when I always thought I could fix this–this being the lumbering processes of a large fabrication facility.

I still can fix it. But, you know what I say instead?

“We can’t do it.”

Regards.

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