If I told you that your life would end at midnight, how would you spend your time? It’s a worthy question, and one you should ask yourself often.

Your Granny is a highly productive person. (Not bragging. Just true). I plan every single day and make adjustments as it unfolds. I have guarded priorities that I defend from interruptions and distractions. I have duties and obligations that require my attention. And, I have cherished time that is unstructured just waiting for me to fill it with my heart’s desire. My day is filled with habits and routines that protect my performance.

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I don’t need a mobile phone.
I don’t need a microwave.
I don’t need air conditioning.
I don’t need two bathrooms.
I don’t need an electric blanket.
I don’t need my own computer.

I have said all those things in the past. And, of course, I was right. I didn’t actually need them. But isn’t life often so much easier or better or more enjoyable with them?

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Only a few days after my birth, I was christened “Mugwump” by my mother, (i.e. a bird that sits on a fence with its mug on one side and its wump on the other; ref. image above). Since I have first-hand knowledge of life as a bird, I share this information with great authority: EVERYONE HAS AN INNER BIRD.

It is the quality that propels you to sing your heart’s song, whether happy or sad. Your inner bird is also why you’re capable of flight, lifting yourself above the gravity of life to soar to new heights and see life from a higher and brighter perspective.

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A powerful behavioral modifier that institutions, religions, and dictators use all the time is cognitive dissonance. I think about it like this. If you say you believe something or are going to do something, your brain gets pretty pumped to follow that command. If you don’t, you feel bummed. For example, if you stand up in a church in front of 200 people and say you believe in Jesus, your brain will want to believe in Jesus.

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When choosing a career, being “valued by society” is not a worthy goal. Anything that determines your value from outside yourself is a manipulative trap. It fosters comparison, scorekeeping, competition, greed, and more. I have another approach to offer. It’s pretty simple, really.
1. List the things you enjoy or that interest you.
2. Learn the associated skills related to each of those things.
3. Practice. Gain as much mastery as you can.

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Ada, remember when you were being relentlessly tormented in high school by that behemoth of a girl?

And that momentous day when she cornered you in the cafeteria so she could signal her brutality and dominance to horrified onlookers. She ranted and taunted you, then threatened bodily harm. She squeezed her sausage fingers into a fist. “Well, ya just gonna stand there looking stupid?”

You looked her square in the eyes — and vomited on her shoes. Not just any shoes, but her new fancy high-tops.

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Your great-grandpa Bob’s new Brittany spaniel was just a pup. They named him Peppi. King was the neighbor’s dog. A black lab friend who was a playmate to Keith and his brothers. King was gentle with their new pup. He’d go hunting with Grandpa Bob to help teach Peppi all the tricks to being a great bird dog.

One day, Keith was taking Peppi for a walk. Keith was six or seven years old. He was about a block away from home when the Shrake family’s dog, a giant, reddish angry beast attacked little Peppi.

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When I started dating Keith, I was on fire with huge, world-changing plans for my life. Keith, on the other hand, had no plans. Instead, he was preparing to die. It was the time of the Vietnam War. In a few months, he would be 18 and eligible for the draft. (That’s a whole different story I’ll tell you sometime, but, for now, let’s just say he was unscathed).

Before and after that period, Keith was comfortable with his life ending. Death abided with Keith - not like a dark cloud over his head, but more like a bird on his shoulder.

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His life started out with a spectacular education at Cornell University, and the the world-famous Julliard School. He was only 24 when he made his Broadway debut. His amazing talent for acting, and his impressive size and masculinity made him a superb choice for the starring role in the blockbuster movie “Superman.” Christopher Reeve’s life looked like a super-hero soaring across the sky.

He loved horses and he loved competition. I think it was a polo match, but it might have been a horse riding competition.

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Which is more important - skill or talent? It’s a perennial question whose answer seems more about autobiography than truth.

If you’re the boss, you’re prone to wave the flag of talent, imagining you were anointed at birth with leadership genes, therefore deserve more power, money, and status.

If you’re the bossed, you likely sing the chants of skill, knowing anyone can learn to do that idiot’s job, which he wouldn’t even have except for his connections and a rigged game.

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People say you learn the best lessons by the mistakes you make - so here’s one of ours. Paw and I decided to build a garage. We share a strong belief in self-reliance so we did much of the work alone. To skip to the important part of this story, one sunny day, I found myself standing on the very top of a step ladder, while holding up a gigantic wooden triangle that would eventually support the roof of this new garage. My job was to keep it as stable as possible while Paw fastened my triangle to the walls while standing on his step ladder. Although we got them all in place, we realized we were idiots to take such a risk.

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Here’s how our society works. It generally rewards two things: full tool belts and rare tools.

The more tools you have, the more problems you can fix. Your ability to fix problems is one part of the equation that determines your value to the world.

The second part of that calculus is the rarity of your tools. If my problem is getting my lawn mowed, that skill is hanging on a lot of tool belts. If I need my heart valve replaced, not so much. The rare tools are more highly valued.

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Since the time of saber tooth tigers and mammoths, humans have been running toward something we want to catch or from something that wants to catch us.

At what point do you think we should run away from a saber tooth tiger? Many of us might say, “That tiger is pretty far away. I think I’ll still sit here for awhile until it gets closer, or maybe he’ll go somewhere else.” It seems we need enough impending danger or undesired consequence to build up before we’ll actually be motivated to run.

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I hate to reveal my cooking secrets, but you’re family, so I will. When I was a young mother, one of Maggie and Mollie’s favorite meals was bean roll-ups. They are really tricky to make. You open a can of refried beans, spread on a tortilla, roll, and heat in the microwave. A little melty nacho cheese for dipping and those little senoritas were in heaven. They thought this was the fanciest meal ever.

I haven’t thought about that for years, until today.

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This past November, I let go of my beloved telescope. When we first moved to Fond du Lac, our new home was rundown. The carpeting in the living room was horribly threadbare with traffic lanes worn down to the jute backing. We saved for new carpeting for over a year. When the time came, instead we used the money to buy a second-hand telescope with an equatorial mount and great optics. We drove to Illinois to fetch it from Keith’s Uncle Harold who belonged to the Astronomical Society in Chicago. He procured it for me from a friend of his.

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When you mom was a baby, a daily entertainment was watching her trying to feed herself. By tiny fistfuls, she’d transport that bowl of applesauce to her hair, her clothes, the floor — everywhere but her little mouth. She’d always get a taste, which kept her trying, but sometimes she’d just cry with frustration.

All learning is messy and hard.

How to struggle effectively is one of life’s most critical skills. Without it, you’ll starve a lot more than your body.

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