10 years. A milestone for myriad occasions. High school graduations, marriages, employment. A nice round number: long enough to have seen many changes, not so long as to make you forget where it all began, so you can still recognize change. 10 years since two planes flew into NYC skyscrapers, one into the Pentagon, and one into Terra Firma, PA. Truly a turning point for our nation, but in retrospect, it seems like we may have made a wrong turn.

Historically, tragedy has been a force of growth and definition for our country. Pearl Harbor, for example, galvanized a nation to war, proving beyond doubt our military and economic prowess, which netted us global dominance in many arenas. Granted, we already held international respect for many of our accomplishments, specifically our burgeoning trade and industry. WWII, though, showed the world that we meant business, and while the attach in Hawaii was tragic, it slingshot us to greatness. At least for a time.

Countless regional disasters have also served to gird the loins of American prosperity. The Chicago fires, the major earthquakes in California, etc. Each of these led to a reanalysis of laws, policies, and they were expanded–sometimes created–to create a better place, safer and more conducive to our lifestyle. And after these, we succeeded. We became wealthy, successful, and respected. Not by everyone, of course, but what country is? Then came 2001. We were coming off of a largely economically successful presidency (and there are always arguments on either side of that issue), and hopes were high that it would continue. Then came September 11.

The events of that day plunged our country into a panicked frenzy. Mobs were attacking any brown person around. Merchants were gouging consumers, who were equally scared. Our people were hurting our own out of fear, and maybe even a little greed, but even with that, we eventually learned to quell the violence. But many never learned to quell the hatred. Our news media, the purported voices of reason, spread fear and hate for ratings, and what’s worse, there are people who take the pundits at face value. They spew hatred and intolerance, and people just eat it up. Internalize it. Realize it. As a result, our reputations has become that we are the pulse of intolerance and ignorance. And, simply, it’s repulsive.

It’s now 10 years later, and a lot has happened. We entered two unending theaters of war, we found and captured one dictatorial leader, who was hung amidst celebration by his mistreated people. Then, we actually found and killed the man believed to be behind the very attacks that happened 10 years ago. We killed him, too. Amidst these military victories, we have also given up a number of civil rights, and pieces of our sense of decency. We’ve allowed our disabled and elderly to be humiliated at the hands of under-trained and overzealous airport security guards. We are as confused and scared and flummoxed as ever, and this is after 10 (T-E-N) years.

The media will be talking all day about how we should be honoring the memories of the people who died. But we’ve done a pretty poor job of that in the last decade haven’t we, then? Our grand memorial at ground zero has barely been started, largely due to money grubbing and squabbling amongst contractors. We have let fear take over our media. There is still wide-spread and unilateral hatred of anyone with brown skin. What have we become, really?

We have not honored these peoples’ lives. And we won’t ever, not until we step back and reprioritize. We are losing money hand over fist to two wars, despite our crippling debt, which is made worse by inactive political leaders, too powerful corporate lobbies, and corporations grabbing for every last dollar without giving back to the communities which fostered their grown from their infancies. It’s made worse by desperation and frustration of the millions looking for jobs. It’s made worse by helplessness and hopelessness in change. We really need to just step back and look at what it means to be American. To be us, not to police the world, not to tell any other country what government is good and what is bad.

We need to just “do us,” for a while, at least until we’re back on our feet and not still reeling from poor decision making and a sucker punch that happened 10 years ago. We need to regroup, refocus, and look at what we lost. Then, we need to move forward. Build from that loss, and do what we’ve always done: come back better and stronger than ever before. But how?

I don’t know. How do you get out of the wars we’ve started? How do you step back and regroup? I have no idea, but something’s got to give, and it cannot be the already flagging American vigor and livelihood. The successful plan is the plan which brings us back to our roots. The plan that reignites the ingenuity and sheer force of will that brought us through so many tragedies in the past. That’s the plan I’ll be looking for.

**NOTE: I understand that not everyone who will read this is an American. I am, though, so please excuse me when I say “our country.” I do not mean to imply that you are included in the collective, just me and the rest of the Americans.

Day 07 → Someone who has made your life worth living for.

This is sort of a silly prompt. I don’t live my life for anyone. I live my life because it’s my life to live. It’s not a matter of selfishness, because I have often (and will continue) to give parts of my life to other people. Much of my life has been given to my wife, my family. But I don’t live it for them. I don’t stay alive because of them.

That’s not to say they haven’t been a source of inspiration in my life, a pick-me-up when I get frustrated or tired. How could they not be? I mean, when you’ve given so much of yourself to these people, it becomes a matter of making sure you can continue to do that. Perhaps this is the same thing as “living your life for them,” but I don’t think so. The whole idea presented in this prompt is a bit melodramatic, I think.

I picture a man trying to swim across an ocean, and the only thing that keeps him going is some lost love on the other shore. Otherwise, he’d just quit and drown. I don’t guess I’ve reached that point. I may have given up on a few select projects or what have you, but I don’t imagine I would have laid down and died.

I also realize that this post is, on its face, contradictory to my last post. But I also don’t think it is. Just because I can’t really fathom a life without my wife or family, that doesn’t mean I can’t handle it, or that I wouldn’t continue on. It just means that I don’t want to, not that I can’t.

In any event, I guess this is all a non-answer to the question. But I don’t think you should ever live your life for someone else. You can choose to include others in your life, and you can choose to give of your life to other, but in the end, it’s your life. Not anyone else’s. And if your life isn’t worth living but for another person? Maybe you should reevaluate your priorities.

December 18 – Try What do you want to try next year? Is there something you wanted to try in 2010? What happened when you did / didn’t go for?

In 2011, I want to try to do a lot of things, most of them pretty small, but important steps to being a better person.

I want to try to be a more consistent blogger. I’ve been doing a pretty good job so far, but I want to get better. Produce ever-better content, make this place something people want to read.

I want to try to be a better husband. To be a little more empathetic. A little more helpful. It’s hard. And I know I’ve got a lot of room for improvement here.

I want to try to cut back on spending. To save more money so we can achieve our goals sooner.

I want to try to get back in school. To start a graduate degree. To pursue the dream of a life in academia.

This past year was not a year or trial and error. It was a year of survival. Of regrouping. Of positioning ourselves for a better future. It’s time to start pursuing that future.

The selfishness, the anger, the ridiculousness. It never ceases to amaze me how childish you people can be when you don’t get your way. When you don’t get the blue one, because only the red ones are left. When the store IS RUINING CHRISTMAS for your children because they have the wrong Spiderman action figure. Ugh.

I just want to grab you and shake you until you’re dizzy and drooling. Tell you just to chill out. Because, hey, they’ve still got Spiderman toys. YOUR CHILD’S CHRISTMAS IS NOT RUINED. Because they’re still getting presents, they’re still going to feel loved, they’re still going to just disregard them in a few days anyway.

CHRISTMAS IS SAVED, but the world is a worse place because you can’t seem to grow up. Can’t seem to see past your own nose. Can’t seem to comprehend a world outside of you. So get over yourself. Take a long look at your life, your family. Be happy. Get the other toy instead. Because, after all, it’s still going to be awesome for your kid. The world won’t collapse. Your child (probably) won’t murder you in your sleep. It’s still going to be great watching your kid tear into all those presents you bought.

No matter what, no action great or small, can ever stop the world from spinning. Remember that.

Sincerely,
Thursday’s Child

When you are 15: When I grow up, I want to be a teacher. A soldier. A college student. An executive. A doctor. A Lawyer. Rich.

When you are 25: When I grow up, I want to be happy. Successful. Rich. A mother. A father. A business owner. My own boss.

It’s funny how dreams and goals change as we get older. They become less fanciful, more practical. And I guess that makes sense. As we get older, we have a better grasp on how things work, on how the world really plays out, and it’s less a matter of being jaded, more a matter of being realistic. Pragmatic. And that’s a good thing, for sure. I mean, not everyone can be an astronaut or a fairy princess.

I guess I’ve just found myself thinking a lot lately about dreams and goals, and how to make them happen. It struck me as funny today how drastically different they are today than they were 5 years ago. 10 years ago. 20 years ago. Today, it’s graduate school, and a PhD, some day teaching as a professor. At some future date, I would also like to open a restaurant, or at least have a giant kitchen where I can cook lots of food for friends and family.

I once had dreams of being an engineer. Of developing weapons. Making things that protect some people and kill others. I don’t now know why I was so interested in that field, but that’s what I wanted to do. R&D development for GE. Now, I can’t even imagine doing that job. I realized that engineering would drive me nuts, and as for the weapons part, I cannot imagine myself building machines made to kill people. But that was the plan. The goal. The dream.

Now, I’d prefer to trade the lab coat for tweed, the calipers for a pen, and a lathe for a poem. And I’m okay with that.

What were some of your old dreams or goals that have now changed to better fit who you’ve become?

In other news, well, there isn’t a lot of other news. Eat, work, sleep. Lather, rinse, repeat. It’s such a drag sometimes, waking up every morning to do the same thing over and over again. Bells, beeping, screaming children. But like I wrote last saturday, it’s just a means to an end. Just a stepping stone on to something greater.

But I got to thinking even more about that. I suppose it’s more than a means to an end. It’s also a wealth of experience, not just on a resume, but also in terms of life. I have seen the bowels of society, but I’ve also seen people at their best. Helping others, being kind, and (above all) being gracious to those who don’t know better. And in the end, that’s more valuable than any of the money, and it really justifies all those bad days, all those days spent flitting from one irritating situation to another.

Those are, each of them, a part of who I am now. They will always be with me, even when I can no longer remember specifics. They will continue to inform my choices, my mannerisms, my whole being. Forever. They can either make me cynical or they can make me learn, and hope that maybe there’s something different. Or, for the good ones, they can make me aspire to be so selfless. Or so caring. Or so gracious.

Good bad, ugly, and soul-sucking. Everything counts, and everything affects your life more than you might realize, whether for good or ill. Even if it’s something as mundane as your days at work.

I think society today has a fundamental misunderstanding of what credit is, and how one goes about using it. Credit seems to be looked at as an equivalent to overspending, to debt, to despair, or desperation. Credit need not be any of these things; rather, it can be a way to help manage your spending, manage your finances, and help you achieve a standard of life well above what you may have previously considered, while still remaining within your means. The misunderstanding is purely a lack of education.

I was raised with the philosophy that there’s no better way to learn than by doing. That said, this philosophy is exactly how nearly everyone in this country learns about credit. The only problem is, they don’t get to experiment or make mistakes until the stakes are too great to allow for mistakes. When your only option to learn-by-doing with credit is to take out an actual credit card, and make decisions that affect your actual credit score, the likelihood of making some catastrophic error in judgment is multiplied. Then, you’re stuck with a decision that will haunt you for a good many years to come.

In a commercial era in which companies have repeatedly shown that consumer protection is non-existent (vis-a-vis the home lending debacle, other credit crises, etc.), education is key in avoiding those costly mistakes. I think there’s an easy, inexpensive way to teach young people the perils and benefits of credit. In effect, this would be a credit sandbox, a fully-functional credit environment, in which the user is free to use the extended credit however he or she wishes, but within safe confines, and any mistakes would not have any long-term ill effects.

Here’s what to do: This sandbox can be created by anyone for anyone else. So, parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles–anyone–can help teach a younger loved one how to use credit. To set this up, simply purchase a reloadable pre-paid card from any of the major credit companies. Load this card with whatever amount you deem appropriate (for example purposes, I’m going with $100). The amount should be something reasonable (even if available credit on credit cards is often unreasonable).

Hand off the card to your loved one, advising them that with great power comes great responsibility. She may use the card without restriction, purchasing or paying for whatever she wishes. Set a monthly “cycle” date, on which payment will be due. This payment can be the full balance of the credit extended, or it can be a minimum payment based on the amount of credit currently extended. The payment is then added back onto the prepaid card, restoring the amount of credit available.

If a minimum payment is made, some “interest” penalty will be assessed. Since we’re not in the business of making money off of our loved ones, that interest can be deposited into an UTMA savings account or other similar fiduciary account, which the user will receive benefit of once he or she comes of age. Alternately, if the interest component is too complicated, it can be skipped altogether; however, the point is to paint as accurate a picture as possible of the way credit actually works.

This sandbox structure allows the student to make choices, whether good or bad. If the money is all spent on junk, it won’t be available for more important or more desirable purchases. Additionally, if the whole balance isn’t paid off, the student will have to learn to adjust spending to ultimately pay off the debt, or eventually the available credit will dwindle to nothing, and the minimum payments may become difficult to pay.

Of course, the hope is that the credit will be used responsibly, and payments made promptly, and our student merely gets to practice good habits in managing money and credit. If the credit is not used quite so responsibly, though, how better to demonstrate the hazards of poor credit management than simply practice in traversing them? The consequences of irresponsibility here are less severe, as the debt can be paid off in a number of ways, whether it be payment arrangements or simply having them work it off doing odd jobs here or there. The point is, there are consequences for irresponsibility with credit, and having to do some odd jobs is far more tame a sentence than life-long ruined credit because of an irresponsible mistake borne simply out of ignorance of the rules of the system.

Even in the face of irresponsible spending, hope remains that these mistakes will serve as first-hand teachers. In this case, an entire future isn’t ruined, just maybe a few weekends spent working in the yard. These mistakes, once made, should prove to be beneficial, in that they will not be repeated in the real credit world, where consequences are far more dire. As the old saying goes, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” and practice equals prevention.

In the interest of full disclosure, I will admit that I grew up with money. For as long as I remember, there’s been no shortage of toys or food or entertainment, etc etc. However, I am aware that my family has not always been so fortunate, and my parents made many sacrifices and had many hardships early on in their marriage, as my father was trying to finish school and an MBA.

My father did not come into his money over night. It was earned through many years of hard work and even harder decisions. As a result, I was given every opportunity. I went to good schools, I went to educational summer programs, I was supported in my school work and given help whenever I needed it. This, then, resulted in a successful academic career. Sprinkled in there were a few jobs of my own, both with my father’s companies and with others as well.

I worked hard in these jobs, and I got my paycheck. This allowed me to get the things I wanted. Did I enjoy going to work? Not really. Who does? I mean, would you rather go to work or spend the day playing video games or whatever makes you happy? Of course not. That’s not to say, of course, that going to work was always a bad thing. Just, there are always more fun things to do.

In any event, I finished college in December of 2008. In case you weren’t aware, the economic world we had spent so long reveling in began to unravel, and property values, stock values, and jobs began evaporating. Faster, I bet, than most people could have expected (but I’m not economic expert). So, even though I dreamed of graduate school, I chose not to go. Instead, my fiancee and I got married. We settled into a little rent house, and I began a job search.

The goal wasn’t money. Not really. It was just a necessity of the world and culture we live in. The goal was to ride out the storm, and at the end, be in a position where the dream could be realized. We still aren’t there yet, but in my neck of the woods, the job market isn’t there yet either.

In the mean time, we have been able to purchase a home, take in a second dog, and live comfortably. I’m working in an industry I never expected to be in, and it’s certainly a far-cry away from English academics, where my heart and soul lie. But, it’s a means to an end. It allows me to stay out of debt, build up some meager savings, and prepare for a return to the dream that I’ve been chasing.

Money, then, isn’t some enemy. It’s a tool. And like any tool, it’s only effective if used correctly. Use the tool, don’t let the tool use you. Keep it all in perspective of your dreams and goals, and pursue money as a means to those ends. You may have to make a sacrifice or two along the way, but in the long run, as long as you refuse to be controlled by your money, your dreams are almost always attainable.

I suppose that with working so much, I really just don’t have a lot to talk about. I won’t really talk about work, not that it’s very interesting anyway, so that knocks a big chuck of my time. I try not to get political too often, just because some diatribe on a blog like this amounts to little more than empty words. Plus, I’m not qualified to really make any suggestions. I don’t know anything about airport security, or macroeconomics, or the implications of a falling dollar. I just don’t know. But there is something I feel qualified to comment on. And that’s personal boundaries.

The Fourth Amendment reads thusly:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

And I suppose that by walking into the line, and silently consenting, we are, technically, waiving our right here, but are these searches reasonable? Is there probable cause? I’m no legal expert, but it doesn’t seem to me that purchasing a plane ticket and having a plan to travel from California to New York presents probable cause that you’re going to try to blow up the plane. But that’s enough on legal matters, I’m not qualified.

So let’s talk about personal boundaries. Now, when I traveled last month, DFW did not have a back-scatter x-ray machine. I went through a metal detector, I took off my shoes, I placed my bags on a belt. You know what? That’s okay. It’s annoying, sure, but it’s non-intrusive, and hey, if they catch something? Great. I did not have to show off the size of my penis, nor did I have to be patted down. But at many airports across the country, that’s not an option.

Randomly selected individuals get to choose: do I bear it all for the guard in another room, or do I let this other guard pat me down in front of everyone else? No no, not just pat down. That’s understating it. Do I let this guard touch my body up and down my torso, including my breasts, butt, genitals. You know. All those places where you were always told that it’s not appropriate to be touched.

But it’s the government, right? So it’s okay? How about the police, too. Get a speeding ticket, then you must have been rushing somewhere to commit a crime. Hell, driving a bus? a van? have a passenger? Given the same logic that governs air travel, are you traveling at all? Well, then it must be probable cause. Your car will be randomly selected to be stopped, and you can either have your nude picture taken, or the police officer can touch you however he likes. As long as we’re safe.

Just got to be safe. I mean, the TSA has an excellent track record, don’t they? All those terrorists and bad guys they’ve caught. Oh wait. They haven’t actually caught anyone, have they? But, you might say! There haven’t been any planes flown into buildings! It must be working! Sure. I’ll admit, there’s some measure of prevention. But, come on. Measures are becoming continually more strict, continually more invasive. And for what? I surely don’t know. Certainly not reason. Certainly not probably cause. And it certainly seems that our “personal effects” are being violated.

But. Who are we to complain? Citizen. Remove your clothing. You will be searched. This is for your safety.

I am not an overly religious person, at least not any more, but the picture above is one piece of that life that I still hold onto. It represents a philosophy my dad holds dear, and one which I think would do the world good to embrace a little more.

Throughout our lives, we very often find ourselves in over our heads. Life can get hectic and turbulent, and it becomes difficult to juggle all the myriad responsibilities. Work and friends and bills and whatever other commitments are already straining enough, but add on top of that sickness, whether your own or a child’s or a family members. Any number of inconveniences–from minor to major–can be that proverbial straw that brings the whole load crashing down.

But, what if we, each of us, made a more conscious effort to help out when these inconveniences strike our friends of family? Sure, it may add to your own long list of things to do, but the idea is that other people are pitching in, too. It then becomes easy to help a friend, neighbor, relative through a difficult time. Even small gestures can add up quickly.

I don’t mean that you should drop everything of your own to come to someone else’s rescue (Just look at the picture!), but lend a helping-hand. It’s not about Christian or Muslim or Buddhist or Pastafarian ideals. It’s about being a decent human being.

The painting was done by an artist from Cuba who my dad has met on a couple of occasions. The image itself comes from a graphic in an old study Bible. My dad took that graphic to the artist, and asked him to make 3 copies of it, styled however he wanted. The result was three unique canvases, all depicting this same scene. One hangs in each of our houses: mine, my brother’s, and my parents. It hangs by the door, reminding me every time I leave the house to go out and be a decent human being.

And lets face it, a reminder to be decent every now and them can’t hurt.