30,000 Days

For most people, 30,000 days is a long life. Think about it, you'll go through 30,000 days, one-by-one, and then its over (we'll save the "what happens to you after you die" chat for another time). You'll wake up 30,000 times ( or thereabouts) and you'll go to sleep 30,001 times.

Now lets break that down. For the first 7,000 days you are young and, hopefully, care-free. But many of us struggle with our youth. What are we going to do with our life? Will I ever meet the perfect mate? Blah Blah Blah. For the most part, however, I'd like to think most of us just enjoyed being young.

Then at the end, lets say our last 7,000 days, we're old. Things don't work as well as they used to. We've seen and heard quite a bit, so we are a little jaded and almost always stuck in our ways. Look at old grandpa sittin' in his chair watching The Price is Right. Nothing seems new and exciting anymore. Lets face it, in some ways, a human is like a car. The best miles are the first 7,000. The worst miles are the last 7,000.

Now in between we work. We work hard because we are told that you need to save for retirement. You need to work to have health care insurance, pay for the kids college and the mortgage and other things as well, but I'd like to focus on this saving for retirement ridiculousness. You are telling me that I should work away in my prime days (16,000 days) so I'll have money for the worst 7,000 days of my life? A time when I don't really want to do much. Maybe a little travel. A little gardening perhaps. Not too much though, that back isn't what it used to be. And those hips, always sore. So we are supposed to, in a way, sacrifice our happiness during our prime 16,000 days so we can have money when the 'ol bod is starting to break down? I hear of kids in their early twenties putting money away for retirement. Putting trips and fun on hold so they can have money during their broken down years. What the . .? Are they crazy?

Let me offer an alternative. I'll call it the John Mellencamp father's world view (since I heard that this is what he preached to his son). We try as hard as we can to enjoy every day that we can. Of course, not every day is a good day. But we make it our first priority to enjoy each and every day to the maximum extent possible. Then, on our 30,000 day, we can look back and say; "You know. I had good days 26,500 of those 30,000 days. That's not bad." Bonk. Out go the lights. If you stick to the popular model, you'd be lucky to score a 10,000 because you may be doing a job you don't like for most of you're life, then you'll be too old to max out on enjoyment in those later days.

Now I'm not saying that you shouldn't be "responsible." That you shouldn't strive hard to reach heights. You should. But I think in doing so, many have taken their eye off the ball. If you're not having fun, what's the point?

So come on every one, lets try to get that score up. You can do it. Lets start right now. What did you do that was fun today?

Your Own TV Show

Here's a hypothetical for you.

You have your own TV show. On that show you show off all your talents. You may recite some poetry. You may tell a story or two. Perhaps you play a musical instrument. Guests with complementary talents also participate. The show starts out crude, but over the course of twenty five years, the show is refined and you are pleased. Then you are tapped on the shoulder.

Its the Chief Technician. He says, "I don't rightly know how to tell you this; but you see those cameras over there." You glance at the cameras that have been religiously recording your weekly show for twenty five years and you nod. "Well those cameras don't work. Never have. Your show was never broadcasted. Well gotta go. Don't want to keep the missus waiting." He leaves. You sit down in a daze.

Then two bedraggled looking gentlemen come up to you. "Sir, you don't know us, but I'm Elmer and this here is Floyd. We clean up around here. We just wanted you to know that we so look forward to your show every week. Don't tell no one. But we stop cleaning and sit over there yonder and watch your show every week. Never missed a one for twenty five years." Floyd grinned widely just before they shook my hand with a little half bow and then walked off.

Now a pessimistic man would have just sat there and cried I'm sure for wasting his creative life away on a show that was never shown. A hopeless man would have cried harder. But an optimist would have been happy that his show brought joy into the hearts of two men and it really didn't matter if two people enjoyed the show or two million liked it. Is it about getting as many people as possible to see your work? Or is it internal? You did it. It was something that you could be proud of and, as a bonus, two others liked it very much. Do we do it for others or do we do it for ourselves?

Emily Dickinson comes to mind. She wrote all of her poetry on scraps of paper and folded them up and stuffed them into a dresser drawer. She never sent them to anyone. No one ever read them, as far as we can tell, while she was alive. Then fifty years after her death they are discovered, published and , well, you know the rest.

Herman Melville wrote Moby Dick and as far as he knew it was a commercial failure. It wasn't until sixty years later that some academic brought it to life and it is now an American classic of course.

I'm not sure where I come down on this exercise in existential crisis. I do know I get a great feeling when a stranger comes up to me and tells me how much he enjoyed my novel. I suppose if only one person read my book and liked it, that would be enough. At least it should be. Shouldn't it?

Nixon/Frost

I was greatly interested to check out the movie "Frost/Nixon." But before I watched the movie, I went back and watched the original annotated interview. It was fascinating. But I thought David Frost was just one step away from really hitting the home run. Nixon admitted that "mistakes were made." But he framed it in a way that was not illegal or immoral. All Frost had to do, in my opinion, was ask Nixon what exactly were those mistakes.

In the movie, Langella (the actor) is much more contrite than Nixon actually was. But the movie was enjoyable. Sheen was perfect as Frost. The underlying conflict is brought out well. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I went back on line and found some additional clips from the original interviews.

Now I was never a "Nixon-phile" in any sense of the word. But I was fascinated by one of Nixon's responses about life in general. He talked about how wanting to be rich and spend your life playing golf or fishing or hunting and going to parties was misguided. He said that life was about struggle. it was about trying something and working hard to make a vision happen. It was about being constructive. It was about being creative. People talked to much and thought too little.

I couldn't be in more agreement with our former president. I see many people who are good at poker for example. The are able to make enough money to get by and even afford some extras in life. But they aren't creating anything. They aren't pushing themselves to be constructive. In the end, they will not be happy. Everyone has talents and abilities. But these traits need to be developed. Need to work at them. Take a chance, a calculated chance, of course. Try to do something and see what happens. It almost doesn't matter if you are successful or not. Try. Try. Try. If you don't, you'll wish you did.

When it cones down to it, risk is not as risky as you think. You at least gave it a shot and it'll be something you'll be glad you did. I guarantee it.