Ten Dollar Thoughts

I have a favorite child: IEP.  He is my smartest, funniest, cutest, and most affectionate child.  He is the most obedient and the most eager to please.  He is the most intuitive and the most insightful.  He is the most articulate.  He gives the best hugs and kisses.  He is my favorite child.

He is also my only child.

While I assume that the moment that Baby #2 arrives (no time soon, for those keeping score…) I will no longer have a favorite child.  I will have two children whom I love differently, but equally.  Always equally.  Right?  Not necessarily.

According to Dr. Ellen Libby, author of The Favorite Child, it is actually quite common for parents to favor one child over another.  The conclusions she draws in this article are not surprising: specifically that favoritism can cause depression in both the favored and unfavored child, and that favoritism in general affects the entire family. 

What the article doesn’t address (perhaps the book does, but I haven’t read it so I can’t comment) is what causes such favoritism in the first place.  What is the catalyst for favoritism?  And how early does it start?  Does it begin when a child adopts hobbies and outlooks that are similar to the parent’s and helps the parent to relate to that child?  Does it begin when a child is a colicky baby and the frustration the parent feels during that phase is sustained over time?  Is the same child always the favored child?  Or does it vary over time?

These questions fascinate me.  I wonder how many parents will admit to anyone, or even to themselves, that the decks in their hearts are not stacked equally.  It must be a gut wrenching reality to face.  But I suspect that facing it is the only way to keep it from poisoning your entire family.  I also suspect that dealing with such psychological undercurrents is a major task.  Libby offers some tactical pointers, but while they may be valid I find her proposed antidotes to be trite:

• Listen to each other. 
• Respect different viewpoints. 
• Strive to accept the truth of different perceptions. 
• Work deliberately at not being defensive. 
• Feel safe to express words of personal truth. 

“Feel safe to express words of personal truth”???  Really??  I have to believe that handing down that little gem to a 13-year-old sitting on the “unfavored” side of the equation is probably as valuable as telling him to “harness his inner calm and stay tuned to his feelings of worth” or some such nonsense.  Wholly abstract and completely impossible to interpret.  

I don’t know what Baby #2 will be like.  I have no idea how my feelings for my children will differ.  I like to believe that I will love and care for them equally, and that the burden of favoritism will not exist in our family.  I cannot be so arrogant, however, as to assume that such biases could never happen to me.  And I hope that such awareness (and, if I’m being honest, a bit of fear) will help me to identify and address such preferences the moment they surface.  I am not a perfect parent (news flash: “Goodnight Goon” scares the bejeezus out of toddlers…) but I hope that in admitting my imperfections I can mitigate the damage they cause.

If we’re going to get right down to brass tacks about it, I’m materialistic.  It’s certainly not my best quality, but we all have traits that rank below the 50^th percentile.  It’s true, I love they way a nice leather handbag feels on my shoulder.  I love the way the mattes on the watercolors over my living room mantel match the wall color perfectly, setting off both the frames and the paintings.  I love having 15 lipstick color choices when I open the makeup case in my purse each morning, allowing me to select a shade that matches both my mood and outfit.  I like these things, and countless other things in a similar vein. 

I don’t admit this easily because it carries with it all kinds of implications.  There is a common belief – and not altogether erroneous – that materialism is bad.  Period.  Materialistic people are shallow and vain and inconsiderate.  Right?  Maybe not.  I think that materialism isn’t as big a sin as we might be inclined to believe.

In an interesting (and somewhat biologically-based) article on The Huffington Post last week Dylan Kendall wrote an article about whether or not objects can make us happy.  She aptly notes that, “… objects have stories and the best ones we carry with us our whole lives. Like our grandmother’s table lamp or the baseball with which we hit our first home run, objects have the power to become more than just ‘things.’”

We can all relate to the significance of these kinds of objects.  Like most people I have objects of varying value that are priceless to me because of what they represent.  But for the purposes of this discussion I’m more intrigued by the objects that have no particular emotional underpinning, but which we enjoy.  Take my handbags as an example.  I have close to a dozen and they were all moderately expensive.  Do I need nearly a dozen handbags?  Absolutely not.  But I use and enjoy each one.  I switch bags several times each week.  I choose one based on my clothing and take pleasure in the way they are functional and stylish at the same time.

This leads me to wonder about the line that we all want not to cross – the line between caring about our belongings and caring only about our belongings.  To what extent is it acceptable to have and enjoy our possessions even if they lack a higher level of sentimental meaning?  And when do we enter the territory of wanting things just to have them, rather than for their value via form or function?  Further still, how does the collector (of stamps, tiny commemorative spoons, or even cars) factor into this moral landscape?

I suppose I would draw that line in the form of a pie chart.  I have and enjoy all kinds of objects.  Some of those objects are practical, like my food processor or a nice pen.  Others are less practical, like artwork or lipstick, but still bring me pleasure.  But my enjoyment of these kinds of things should only take up a certain portion of my life and my focus – a relatively narrow sliver of my pie chart.  I should also spend time focusing on mental and spiritual growth, maintaining relationships, helping other people, and behaving charitably.  As long as those things are bigger priorities in my life then I’m comfortable that my enjoyment from material possessions is not overblown.  But the moment that my little equilibrium tips in the direction of objects over everything else is the moment I need to reevaluate my priorities.

About a month ago I did something that scared the bejeezus out of me: I started researching preschools.  Yes, I know, IEP is not even two yet.  Mostly I just had no idea at what age kids start going to preschool and didn’t want to miss the boat because I was lost in a state of denial thinking, “But my baby is only nine years old.  Surely he isn’t old enough to start school yet, right?”

The comforting answer to the question spurring my research was that we have two full years before we start taking first-day-of-school photos on the front porch.  The not-so-comforting follow-up information came when I started clicking into tuition pages and discovered that many of the preschools we’re considering cost more than my high school did.  This is one of the few moments when I’m glad I don’t live in Manhattan and haven’t felt pressured to start the application process every day since my second trimester.  But I digress…

As an interesting parallel to our own preschool-filled horizon I happened across this NYT article about “The Littlest Redshirts.”  Apparently it is now de rigueur to hold your child back a year in some sort of Darwinian power play to make sure that he is among the smartest, tallest, and strongest in his class.**  Not surprisingly, I am ambivalent about this.

As a September baby I always enjoyed being among the oldest in my class.  I was one of the first to drive and vote and drink (legally, at least).  Whether or not I actually did, I perceived myself as having a bit of a leg up.  And all of these things factored somewhat into our decision to shoot for an autumn baby before I got pregnant with IEP.  But in spite of our own “strategery” I have an adverse response to the idea of holding a child back to stack the deck in this way. 

Perhaps I have visions of aggressive stage parents jockeying their children for position at the top of the toddler heap.  (I certainly have visions of the scene in Baby Boom where Diane Keaton sits dejected at the playground as other alpha mommies decry her parenting techniques and shun her for not having little Elizabeth on the Dalton waiting list.)  Such visions are off-putting enough.  But I think my real objection here is the effect that this “my child is the exception” mentality has on the kids who follow the rules.

For example, say IEP was born in April.  If I enroll him in preschool the year after he turns three (as is customary, I have learned) he will be among the younger members of his class.  Kids will be up to eight months older or four months younger than my son.  Now, say I don’t like the idea of IEP being on the young end.  Say I am heavily invested in my son’s success and I want him to have every advantage.  So I hold him back a year.  Now he starts preschool as a four-year-old.  He is older, smarter, and stronger than he was a year ago and than most other kids in his class.  IEP wins!

But who loses in this scenario?  What about the child who was born in mid-August and just barely made the September 1^st cutoff?  Now that child (and lots of other summer babies) are not just being stacked up against to kids who are 10 and 11 months older, but to kids who are up to a year and a half older.  By comparison they will be significantly less developed on many levels.  And I’m certainly no expert in early childhood development, but I can’t imagine that this does wonderful things for self-esteem (not to mention standardized test results which are scored in percentiles…). 

As a parent I totally understand the desire for your child to have every advantage you can hand him in this big bad world of ours.  But what does it say to your child about your confidence in him if you choose to cheat the system to give him a leg up?  And what does it teach him about how to succeed in the world if you’re willing to leave others to flounder for your own benefit?  I think the answer is: nothing good.

**Note – I’m not talking about kids who are held back for legitimate developmental reasons.  Many kids are held back because they simply aren’t ready and that is a bird of a different feather.

In honor of Eat, Pray, Love having come out this past weekend, and because this kind of content is right up the alley of those of us who have a passion for writing, today I am offering up Liz Gilbert’s TED talk from 2009.  I first saw it sometime last year, but it sprang to mind again in the wake of all the movie publicity. 

Gilbert speaks so eloquently herself that I won’t elaborate further (besides, my grey matter is still a bit mushy from all the discussion on Friday) except to say that whatever your creative process is, embrace it.  It is no weirder than any of the other artists’ processes that she cites.  Nor is it more banal than Gilbert’s own work-a-day process.  It is yours, so own it and use it. 

PS - Sorry I wasn’t able to embed the video.  Apparently I don’t have the correct WordPress plugin.  Will have to look into that.  You should be able to reach the video from the link above without any trouble.

What do you value more in your life: Experiences or belongings?  Adventures or routine?  New and different or known quantities? 

When we’re speaking abstractly it’s easy to say that we care more about having great experiences in life; that we aren’t attached to our belongings; and that we are always up for something new.  It’s quite another thing to live out those statements for seven years on a sailboat with your family. 

That’s right.  I said seven years on a sailboat with your family. 

The Crafton family, whom I find simultaneously inspiring and full-throttle bonkers did just that, and apparently they’d do it again.  The nuts and bolts of their story go something like this:

• Family of five decides to ditch everything (literally – homes, careers, property, cars, etc), buy a boat, and sail the world.
• Two of the kids had speech delays which were better addressed without typical peer pressure.
• Everyone got along better without the distractions of material belongings and adolescent angst.
• They stayed on the water for seven years and only returned when it was time for one of the kids to start college.
• They don’t regret a moment of it.

As I read the article about their experience a strong sense of ambivalence hovered over me.  I love the idea of giving it all up in favor of a life un-tethered by convention.  Yet in the same moment I felt intensely protective of those same conventions.  However would I survive without Bobbi Brown face wash, or my KitchenAid mixer, or my king size bed?  How would I incorporate some of my favorite things into a life on the open sea?  Could I get satellite internet service?  How many books would I need to pack?  How would I manage to log four workouts per week? 

Then I kicked myself.  I realized that the purpose of a decision like this is absolutely NOT to create a portable version of your existing life.  The purpose of a decision like this is to turn away from your existing life and take on a life that looks entirely different.  And doing that means giving up things that may mean a great deal to you.  Fresh herbs, air conditioning, a social life, and countless creature comforts would be left behind on purpose.  (Also little things like scalloped tomatoes, television reruns, and flirty nightgowns.) 

And that scares the bejeezus out of me.

By why?  Why do I cling to these things so fiercely?  What do I think will happen to me in their absence?  Will I become unhappy?  Do I measure myself in some way against these benchmarks of convention?  Would I completely lose sight of myself and my priorities in the absence of typical guideposts?  And most importantly, if any of these things is true, what on earth does that say about me? 

I know that I am more than my home, car, wardrobe, and hobbies.  But if that is true, then shouldn’t I be willing to let any of them go?  I don’t necessarily think so, but I can’t place my finger on why. 

PS – As a completely unrelated aside, this is my one hundredth post.  I can hardly believe that after just seven months of blogging I’ve reached an actual milestone.  Thanks for reading and commenting and being a part of these little mental exercises of mine.

If you have a dog (or have in the past) would you say that your dog is tuned into you?  Would you say that she knows when you’re happy or sad or angry?  Would you say that she senses the difference between a threat and a non-threat?

Most people would ascribe these characteristics to their dogs.  (I’m not a cat person, so I can’t speak about the proclivities of the feline persuasion.)  This is due in part to the fact that after thousands years of being bred for working, sporting, and playing alongside humans, they tend to be in touch with us.  It is also because certain highly trained dogs have learned to interpret human situations with incredible accuracy.  (Did you catch this story a few years ago about the dog that dialed 911 and then opened the door for emergency responders?)

Service and assistance dogs astound me.  So do police dogs, drug dogs, and bomb-sniffing dogs.  These animals rise well above the status of “good pets” and help out mankind on another level altogether.  Many of them thrive on it.  However, apparently, such lives of thrill and danger can take their toll on dogs just as much as they can on humans.

From a story that is simultaneously heart-breaking and inspiring, I learned that a 2-year-old German shepherd named Gina has returned from a tour in Iraq with PTSD.  I won’t rehash the entire story (it won’t take you but a minute to read on your own), but the gist of it is that she left for Iraq as a highly trained but sweet and happy bomb-sniffing dog.  She returned home “cowering and fearful.”  She was diagnosed by a military veterinarian with canine PTSD which he says can affect dogs just as it affects people.

This is fascinating it its own rite.  But the aspect of the story that most captured my attention was this sentence:

But some veterinarians dislike applying the diagnosis to animals, thinking it demeans servicemen and women.

Demeans them?  Really?  Perhaps it’s because I’m a dog lover.  Perhaps it’s because I recently watched The Hurt Locker and the dangers endured by bomb squads are fresh in my mind.  But I struggle to understand how anyone who is willing to put her life in the hands of a brilliantly trained dog, and put that dog’s life at risk in the same moment, could ever claim to be demeaned by the idea that the dog might suffer the same long term effects of warfare that the soldier herself does. 

If we believe that a dog can understand how to find a bomb, or how to predict a seizure, or how to find drugs hidden inside tires at border checks, then how can we consider that the same dog couldn’t understand the context of risk and danger implicit in many of those situations?  I find it more demeaning to the dog to assert that they couldn’t have PTSD than to the soldier to assert that they could.

So far this week I’ve regaled you with my affections for scalloped tomatoes (yes, I made my fourth batch in two weeks on Wednesday night) and TV reruns.  I’ve also discovered that these two things are made even better when enjoyed at the same time – you really should try it.  Perhaps tonight while GAP is out at a business dinner I will really gild the lily and add this third component to the mix for a moment of perfect Gale bliss.

The nightgown.  I hadn’t worn one since I was at least eight years old.  In my mind they were either stuffy, puritan affairs or tiny and tawdry.  For years, unaware that there was any kind of middle ground, I opted for two-piece pajamas.  Some of them were darling matched sets.  But many others were shameful combinations of old t-shirts and boxer shorts.  Not so pretty.

Further, as a matter of practicality, I frequently got into fights with my pajama bottoms in the middle of the night.  I would roll.  They would twist.  I would right them.  They would twist again.  It was an ongoing, maddening battle that I resented for interrupting my precious REM cycles (or something, I really don’t know anything about sleep biology).    

So, recently I decided it was time for a bit of overhaul in the sleepwear department.  Time to bring the words beauty sleep to life.  Time to end the day wearing something that would see me through to morning without incident. 

Enter: the nightgown.  (Actually, nightgowns. Plural.)

They are flirty and feminine without being racy or raunchy.  Sweet but not twee.  Delicate but not dainty.  They make me feel like a lady, which is a lovely way to feel, especially at the end of a long day.  They make me brush my hair one last time before getting into bed.  I’ve even reintroduced two long-forsaken skincare steps (toner and eye cream) back into my nightly toilette. 

And nightgowns are comfortable – oh so comfortable.  They don’t spiral around me and wake me up.  The cotton is soft and breezy.  They are cool on warm summer nights.  Perhaps it is psychosomatic, but I sleep so much better in nightgowns than pajamas.  If sleep like this means mental trickery, sign me up.  I’m game.   

A good night’s sleep really isn’t such a little thing.  It should be.  It should be easy.  Sleep is delicious, and healthy, and free.  We should be tired when we go to bed and rested when we wake in the morning.  Sleep should be the easiest decision we make all day, yet so many of us get so little of it. 

Nightgowns, like all of the little things I’ve written about this week, add up to something bigger.  A perfect simple supper is comforting and nourishing and whole.  Our favorite reruns on television bring a combination of pleasant surprise and predictable calm.  And a nightgown helps us log the eight or nine hours of uninterrupted sleep that help us feel (if not actually become) really on top of things.

These little things are small on their own.  But they extrapolate out to much greater levels of meaning.  This is why the idea of “the little things” is such a cliché.  There is truth in it that we can’t afford to overlook.

PS – As I contemplated my posts this week there were several other little things that I considered: good pens, text messaging, going to movies alone, Zappos.com, and countless others.  Our lives are full of little things that we neglect to consider very often.

After a 10-day break from blogging I am rested, but I’m also struggling to hit my literary stride again.  My mind has been busy with much reading, but I have found that being on the receiving end of mental stimulation is much easier than producing it.  I suppose this shouldn’t surprise me, but to some extent it does.  I didn’t expect my time off – filled with books, magazines, and conversation – to slow the spinning of my mental wheels as much as it did.  But as I struggle today to organize and articulate my thoughts I can only help but feel that I’ve been quite lazy over the past couple of weeks.  This feels like my first trip to the gym after two weeks on the couch. 

As I’ve thought about this little phenomenon I remembered a chapter I read earlier this summer in Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers.  He discusses the process of lying fallow – leaving land unplanted between crops – and the ways in which it can augment or detract from agricultural yield depending on the crop.

Here in the United States we grow crops that can drain the soil of its nutrients if the same crop is planted on the same land year over year.  Eventually the soil will be so depleted that the yield will suffer and possibly fail altogether.  Farmers have long worked around this problem with crop rotation and fallow periods.  Letting a field lie fallow allows the soil’s nutrients to replenish, making the next season’s planting more productive. 

Early Americans applied this practice more broadly than agriculture, though.  As the school year was designed there was a period of lying fallow built in for children.  Today we know this period as summer vacation.  Kids are allowed to rest their minds, relax, play, and take a break from all that thinking.  As is the case in farming, the idea behind this was that the rest would prime them for more efficient learning during the school year.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the Chinese also applied their agricultural practices to their beliefs about education.  What makes this parallel fascinating, though, is that because they grow rice their educational system looks very different from our own.  Rice, unlike wheat or corn, benefits from more planting.  The more batches of crop that can be planted each growing season, the better the yield.  Lying fallow would be detrimental to the productivity of the land.    

In chapters eight and nine of Outliers Gladwell addresses the well known mathematical superiority of Asian students over Americans.  The details he identifies are compelling and I won’t attempt to recreate them here because I’m no Gladwell and if you haven’t already done so you should read the book yourself.  But the net conclusion is that the American agricultural premise doesn’t hold up when applied to education.  That is, our minds become better with use, not rest.  Rice farming is labor intensive on a scale that dumbfounds me.  As the old Chinese maxim goes, “No one who can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a year fails to make his family rich.”  That attitude applied to education created Asian school years that range from 220 to 243 days long (as compared to 180 days in the U.S.).  And students who are in school up to 35% more days per year than Americans have lots of smarts to show for it.

So I sit here, feeling rested but not particularly sharp.  My grey matter is a bit mushier than normal today and my quick wits have slowed.  I am inspired by the idea of constant learning, but a bit overwhelmed at the same time.  You see, I liked my break.  And, mental laziness aside, I think it was good for me.  Because if I am completely enervated I’ll have nothing left to give to my little mental escapades here.  I doubt I’ll ever go on a three month hiatus from reading and thinking and learning.  But I still contend that a week here and there do more good than harm.  Besides, it’s July which means that it’s hot and humid and utterly miserable outside.  I liken a mental break to a big glass of ice water – delicious and refreshing, but also essential for survival.

I don’t think I have to go too far out on a limb in saying that I value education.  It’s not an especially risky position to take.  I am the fortunate product of a good education, a family of readers, and a marriage filled with challenging ideas. 

These things suit me, but beyond that, I believe they make me a better person.  I believe that I improve myself every time I learn something, whether it’s the result of extensive reading or a quick Wikipedia search.  I also believe that learning and education are not exclusively achieved by enrollment in colleges and graduate schools.  They likewise come from independent reading, engaging with people, exposing yourself to new environments and cultures, and experiencing things firsthand.

Having said all this I am fully aware that there are plenty of ignorant people in the world.  Some of them yearn for better opportunities and broader experiences.  But plenty of them are content to meander through life with the knowledge they’ve already obtained, along with whatever else happens upon them without too much effort. 

It is this second category of people that GAP and I discussed over dinner Saturday night.  He has a low level of tolerance for people who don’t engage their minds.  Not for people who are uneducated.  Not even for people who aren’t very bright.  His beef is with those who don’t try; people who could ask interesting questions and think interesting thoughts, yet choose not to.  They exist in all circles of society: urban, rural, middle class suburban, wealthy, and poor. 

I am inclined to give these people a pass, of sorts.  There is a part of me that believes that their choices are not my business.  If they are happy enough in their current lifestyle, who am I to assume that my own approach to personal growth is right for them?  Additionally, ignorant bliss aside, for many of these people additional knowledge or analytical insight may not measurable improve their lives in any tangible way. 

Yet I have said it: I value education.  I think it is important.  So how can I reconcile that belief to only some subset of my society?  I would never state that vegetables and exercise are only important for people who already enjoy them.  I would never concede that open-mindedness and generosity are only valuable in people who care about those traits.  So why would I parse words when it comes to education?

I suppose it is that when it comes to advocating mental muscle there is a risk factor for snobbery that scares me.  Particularly given that I am well educated I fear that being outspoken about education (formal or otherwise), intellectual curiosity, and other aspects of knowledge and learning will imply judgment that I truly do not mean to convey.

There is a line from The West Wing (probably my all-time favorite show) that comes from a senior White House staffer in the midst of an election cycle.  The sitting president is an educated liberal from a prestigious family, fighting against a challenger who comes from more humble roots and is gaining ground on his platform of being a regular guy.  As the president grapples with how to leverage his own intellectualism the staffer says, “Before I look for anything, I look for a mind at work.”

I have always loved this line because it succinctly communicates exactly what I value.  He doesn’t say, “Before I look for anything I look for a post-graduate degree” or “a high iQ” or “analytical genius.”  He looks for a mind at work.  The range there is so broad.  It allows for so many versions.  A mind at work includes library books, The History Channel, and conversations with quirky and interesting people, as well as diplomas that read Summa Cum Laude. 

I suppose what I’m here to say is that I don’t care whether or not you have a college degree or even a high school diploma.  I don’t care if you’re a savant-like genius or a dim-witted fool.  I care if you’re trying.  I care that you get up each day and put your thinking cap on.  I care if there’s a mind at work.  And that, I hope, is a fair position to take.

With apologies to Dr. King, we all have dreams.  Our dreams may not be as noble as his (likely not), but they are our own and they are meaningful to us.  Perhaps we dream about becoming a writer.  Or having the time to take a vacation for two full weeks.  Or becoming an Olympic athlete.  Or not living paycheck to paycheck.  Or finding a spouse.  Or not being overweight.  Or owning a lavish apartment on 5^th Avenue. 

Sometimes our dreams are well within our control.  We know we have the power to harness our futures and transform them to match our vision.  But sometimes we look at the horizon in front of us and watch it remain out of our reach, no matter how quickly we move toward it.

We doubt ourselves, or our circumstances, or our ability to change our lives.  We believe that in spite of our most ardent hopes and efforts we will never make it to the destination we so earnestly (and oftentimes secretly) desire.  So we find faults with our dreams.  We convince ourselves that we don’t really want the things that we want. 

“A two week vacation is so long that I’d just get homesick and not really enjoy it.”

“Freelance writing provides such spotty income.  If I ever made a career of it, I’d probably end up wishing for my regular salary back.”

“Olympic athletes spend every waking moment training.  They really don’t have lives outside of their sport.  And once the Olympics are over, then what?”

When your reach exceeds your grasp sometimes it is easier to rein in your reach than to extend your grasp.  And that is how we come to settle. 

But why do we do this?  Whatever does it accomplish to move the finish line in order to spare our egos?  Why don’t we all indulge our big dreams, mull them over, strategize around them, and find ways to realize them?  We get one life on this big rock.  We have no choice in how we enter it.  But we have a great deal of influence over how we live it and how we leave it.  So why accept your own status quo, when you know something bigger could be yours if you were willing to take the risk?

As part of a New Year’s resolution I’ve been reading nonfiction almost exclusively this year.  From Jeanette Walls’ memoir The Glass Castle, to Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, to Michael Lewis’ The Big Short, I am encountering one after another story of people who have pursued a big dream and realized it.  In some cases they were fortuitous enough to stumble into astoundingly lucky circumstances.  In others they overcame astounding odds and were successful in spite of their circumstances.  But either way, at some level each of the people profiled in these books chose to pursue the dream – to risk the dream – rather than to settle for the well traveled and familiar path.

And so I am prone to wonder to what extent the well traveled and familiar path is a sabotage of your dreams disguised as something more palatable.  In some cases, I suspect it’s a great deal.

So why this little pep talk?  Is it for you?  Maybe.  Is it for me?  Probably.  My head is all over the map these days, but I keep coming back to the parameters of success.  What does it look like on an absolute scale?  What does it look like relative to me?  What are my fear factors?  How much do they govern me?  How much often do I conquer them?

I have no answers today.  But as long as my head is spinning with these questions I figured I’d might as well have some company on the ride.