"The Lost Years"

When I was in my early 20's, I was searching. When I was in my mid-20's, I was searching. When I hit my late 20's and early 30's, I was still searching. What was I supposed to "do"? What was I supposed to make of my life? How is this thing going to go down? I really didn't know and, though I started to piece it together bit by bit, I lacked the confidence to "go boldly in the direction of my dreams" because the dreams were fuzzy and the path ahead was definitely a scary one.

One of the things that helped get me through the great unknown (or that portion of it anyway) is the following brief essay by James Michener. Shared with me by a dear friend at a crucial time, it became a close companion on the journey. It helped me to realize that my exploration was "normal" and "creative" and that I needed to trust the process. Today, having found my path and the confidence to walk it more purposefully every day, I relish the opportunity to pass the essay along to those who may benefit. Please read it and do the same.

The Lost Years

We all worry about wasting time, about the years sliding past, about what we intend to do with our lives. We shouldn't-for there is a divine irrelevance in the universe that defies calculation. Many men and women win through to a sense of greatness in their lives only by first stumbling and fumbling their way into patterns that gratify them and allow them to utilize their endowments to the maximum.

Actually, I wrote nothing at all until I was forty. This tardy beginning, one might say, stemmed from the fact that I spent a good deal of my early time knocking around this country and Europe trying to find out what I believed in-what values were large enough to enlist my sympathies during what I sensed would be a long and confused life. Had I committed myself at age eighteen as I was encouraged to do, and as we all are encouraged to do, I wouldn't even have known the perimeters of the problem, and any choice I might have made then would have had to be wrong. It took me forty years to find out the facts.

As a consequence, I have never been able to feel anxiety about young people who are fumbling their way toward the enlightenment that will keep them going. I doubt that a young person, unless she wants to become a doctor or a research chemist, in which case a substantial body of specific knowledge must be mastered within a prescribed time, is really capable of wasting time, regardless of what she does. I believe that you have until age thirty-five to decide finally on what you are going to do, and that any exploration that you do in the process will, in the end, turn out to have been creative. Indeed, it may well be that the years that observers describe as wasted will prove to have been the most productive of those insights that will keep you going. The trip to Egypt, the two years spent as a runner for a bank, the spell you spent on the newspaper in Idaho-these are the ways in which a young person ought to spend her life-the ways of waste that lead to true knowledge.

Two more comments. First, I have recently decided that the constructive work of the world is done by an appallingly small percentage of the population. The rest simply don't give a damn or they grow tired, or they fail to acquire when young the ideas that would vitalize them for the long decades. I am not saying that such people don't matter; they are among the most precious items on the earth. But they cannot be depended upon to either generate necessary new ideas or to put them into operation if someone else generates them. Therefore, those men and women who do have the energy to form new constructs and new ways to implement them must do the work of many. I believe it to be an honorable aspiration to want to be among the creators.

Second, I was about forty when I retired from the rat race, having satisfied myself that I could handle it if I had to. I saw then that a person could count their life a success if they survived, merely survived, to age seventy, without having ended up in jail because they could not adjust to the minimum laws that society required, or having landed in the booby hatch because they could not bring their personality into harmony with the personalities of others.

I now believe this without question: Income, position, the opinions of one's friends, the judgments of one's peers, and all the other traditional criteria by which human beings are judged are for the birds. The only question is-can you hang on through the crap they throw at you and not lose your freedom or your good sense. I am now sixty-seven and three quarters and it looks as if I've made it. Whatever happens now is on the house and of no concern to me.


~James A. Michener
Author of Hawaii, Centennial, The Drifters, Adventures in Paradise, and other works.



© 2010 David Berry

"Feast on Your Life"

I'm sitting at the kitchen table, enjoying my coffee and doing a lot of thinking. I'm thinking about my stories, what matters to me and how I want to express it. I am literally doing the work of forming and refining my point of view, piecing together the disparate strains of thought, belief and experience that make me who and what I am. Gathering the source material, the kindling, that allow the fire of my imagination to start quickly and burn long and well.

I am doing this out of my desire to formulate a message, my message. About development, about learning and about leadership and about my experiences playing with, experiencing and struggling with them in both thought and practice.

What started as an exercise - sorting through paper, organizing old notes, surfacing past presentations - has become a sacred, almost spiritual experience. I didn't expect to feel this way, but I do. And I am grateful for it. It tells me I am asking the right questions, moving in the right direction.

And, in this moment, I recall Derek Walcott's poem, "Love After Love."

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

A Break in the Action

About a year or so ago I was summoned for jury duty, ended up getting called to hear a case and spent a very unexpected three days at the county courthouse. In the moment it wasn't too big a deal except that I remember feeling frustrated about the upheaval that was created in my work schedule, among other priorities that were forced to shift. At some point during the experience, perhaps once it had concluded, I realized that this simple and unplanned "break in the action" had become a significant turning point for me. Something about having the surprise opportunity to just sit, think and take stock of things from a new point of view had a profound impact. (And, for those of you who may be concerned that I didn't live up to my civic duty because I was daydreaming all day, please rest assured that I worked very hard to earn my $5 a day.)

This week I find myself experiencing another break in the action. After a long holiday weekend I succumbed to a persistent and annoying cough (the kind that gives you a headache after a while) and stayed home from work for an unthinkable two straight days. I can't remember the last time I took a sick day, much less two in a row! At first, it was awkward. I really didn't feel unwell, like I need to be in bed - the kind of sick we imagine we are supposed to be to stay home (or is that just me?) - it's just that I spend so much of my work day in one-on-one conversation that I don't think hacking and wheezing in people's faces is such a great idea.

So, I've had some space. No meetings. A few good phone calls. Lots of email catch-up. Some planning time. And a chance to just be home. I'm telling you, the impact on my mental, much less physical health is profound. I've pretty much let go of the guilt of canceled meetings and disrupting other people's world (I am, as ever, dispensable). And I find myself in this sort of "No, duh!" awareness as in:

You have too many meetings. "No, duh!"

You have no time in your day/week to write, read or think. "No, duh!"

You are stressed/angry/frustrated because you very much want to write, read and think but you've created a classic "sucker's choice" instead of confronting the real issue. "No, duh!"

The real issue? Less is more. Letting go. Saying no. Redirecting. Serving myself, my family and my organization more thoughtfully and more generously by sorting out the important stuff from "the stuff."

I'm already breathing a little easier. Time to get back to work.

Getting Ready for the Desert

This is the first time in many years that I've actually thought about Lent before Lent began. Typically I would find myself sitting in church on Ash Wednesday (assuming I got there at all) listening to the annual scriptural admonition to not draw attention to oneself through outwardly pious actions but rather to find humble and quiet ways to deepen ones relationship with God during the following six weeks. Anyway, there I would sit, struck by the fact (again) that I had given utterly no thought to how I would participate in Lent. No thought whatsoever to what kind of humble and quiet practice I would take on in order to deepen my faith and strengthen myself as a person.

This year is different. This year I'm thinking about it. This year I remember what an opportunity Lent can be and I'm ready to do something about it.

I feel extremely fortunate to have grown up in and to currently participate in a faith tradition that so strongly emphasizes the observance and disciplines of Lent. I'm not saying I've really enjoyed it as I have certainly made some uncomfortable choices in Lents past, the most uncomfortable of which has been to disregard the opportunity altogether on many occasions. There is something so fundamental and so visceral about being called to examine one's life and make new choices about how to live that life using the model of a man who wandered the desert for forty-days being put to severe tests and ultimately confronting his destiny.

Please know that I am not writing of Lent in order to be inclusive (you guys have GOT to try this!) or exclusive (this post is reserved for Anglo and Roman Catholic believers who are ACTIVELY practicing their faith. All others need not read.) Rather, I am sharing my experience of Lent because I feel very lucky to have an annual reminder that six weeks of intention, six weeks of a very challenging willingness to set aside the well-worn patterns of daily life in favor of new opportunities, brings with it the possibility of making a lasting change.

There's a bundle of different theories on how long it takes to make and solidify real change. I've heard about 21-day disciplines and 28-day approaches and they may be perfectly serviceable ways to get it done. For me, however, 40 days is just right. It's short enough that I can actually wrap my head around it: "OK, in just six short weeks I'll be on the other side of this AND I'll get to wear my new Easter tie and eat a LOT of chocolate." And, it's just long enough to feel like a significant challenge: "Forty days? Really? I have to do this for forty days?!?!?" (whimper, whimper, whine, whine...see how it easy it is to forget about the guy who wandered in the desert? Or about anyone who's actually had to deal with a reality slightly more challenging than giving up sweets or booze for six weeks?)

I'm going to use those 40 days in a new way this time around. First of all, it's always felt more meaningful and powerful for me to "take on something new" rather than to "give something up" so that will be my focus. As for what I will specifically do, well, to be honest, I'm not quite sure. I know it has something to do with quieting down, centering, meditating, praying or some kind of reflective practice. How that's going to unfold, I just can't say.

But, hey, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I've got a couple more days to figure it out.

See you on the other side.

Meditation and The Wall Street Journal

I never intended to subscribe to the Journal. About 18 months ago I received one of those "you have unused miles on such-and-such airline and they are about to expire so why not apply them to a subscription to one of these publications" mailings. Sounded good to me, especially since I've never been much of a hard-nosed business guy. I figured a little help from the WSJ couldn't hurt.

It certainly didn't. Turns out that I started taking the paper right when this little housing bubble, mortgage crisis thing was getting interesting and I got a fantastic daily education on the ins and outs of the most dramatic financial crisis of our time. My ritual is pretty basic: set the coffee before bed, wake up early, get the paper, drink and read. Some days it's fairly dull, most days it's pretty darn interesting. And, habit forming to say the least.

Well, in the midst of all of this business education and libertarian (never really sure what that one means...is that a Republican in sheep's clothing?) opinion making, among all the other stuff of life, I find myself hankering over the last few months to finally confront another, slightly more personal and challenging aspect of my personality. That is, my real fear of any form of quiet, meditative, silent, focused....anything. As a guy who is always on the go, whose emotions go from fairly mellow to incensed in about 2 seconds, and whose got high blood pressure, I've always known that some form of daily quiet would be REALLY good for me. And, in spite of all of that evidence I've just never been willing to face it.

So, I've literally been stewing about how to find the time in the day - between my coffee, the WSJ, exercise, work, music, kids, Mrs. Berry, among other things - not to mention the willingness, to make room for something new like a meditative "practice" of some kind.

And then, a couple of weeks ago, I received a "subscription renewal notice" from the WSJ. Did you know that it costs $400+ a year to subscribe to this thing? I had no idea. And, now that I do, I'm dropping it. Going cold turkey. I mean, that's a lot of cash for something I can get online. And, here's the real cost of that spirit of economy: it frees up plenty of time in the morning for me to start my new thing.

Problem is, I don't know how to start. And this I know for sure: one morning soon, at about 5:30 AM, I'm going to walk outside into the cool air of a Southern California winter's day, and it's going to be all driveway, palm trees, grass...and me.

Now what?

What Matters Now

A good friend sent me an e-book put together by Seth Godin. It's a really cool collection of "big ideas" from all kinds of different thinkers.

In the spirit of my recent interest in "living from innocence" I hope you'll check out the entry on "Neoteny" (the retention of childlike attributes in adulthood) on page 39. Really powerful.

Enjoy! And pass it along...

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/files/what-matters-now-2.pdf

Play With Me

I received some wonderfully affirming and encouraging feedback about a recent post. It's fascinating to me what speaks to people; what connects in ways that other things don't. That people will go out of their way to tell me that something I've written has "spoken" to them is especially powerful, and humbling. Mostly I take it as a good push to keep on going. Let me say "Thank You" to whomever is reading this and to those who have sought me out to comment and connect - it means a lot.

I find myself compelled to keep exploring this idea of "living from innocence." What I am referring to is our child-like self. That part of us that remembers and remains connected to the best attributes of being young. That part of us that only knows how to be vulnerable, unsophisticated and unproven. That part of us that knows that our physical, mental and spiritual well-being is deeply connected to our creativity, our curiosity and our imagination. That part of us that remembers how to play.

I found a wonderful description of the "Elements of Play" in the book, Play, by Stuart Brown, MD. The elements come from a framework for play devised by Scott Eberle at the Strong National Museum of Play (yes, there actually is such a place...).

He suggests that play involves the following attributes: (and, I've included my own story in italics after each one)

"Anticipation – waiting with expectation, wondering what will happen, curiosity, a little anxiety, perhaps because there is uncertainty or risk involved (can we hit the baseball and get safely on base?), although the risk cannot be so great that it overwhelms the fun.

DB: last summer I was invited to speak at the New York Times (the big one...in Manhattan...yes, that one) and I was freaked out. I knew I had a good story to tell but why the hell would they want to hear it from me?

Surprise – the unexpected, a discovery, a new sensation or idea, or shifting perspective. This produces…

DB: I got safely on base. They were curious about me and interested in what I had to say and I delivered the goods as if I did this all the time.

Pleasure – a good feeling, like the pleasure we feel at the unexpected twist in the punch line of a good joke. Next we have…

DB: Pleasure? Absolutely. Once I realized I could pull this off I relaxed into the day and made the most of it.

Understanding – the acquisition of new knowledge, a synthesizing of distinct and separate concepts, an incorporation of ideas that were previously foreign, leading to…

DB: I was thrilled to realize that I really could do this, that I had something to say and that it mattered to these folks. That was a "previously foreign" concept for sure...I just hadn't had a chance to prove it and I was pretty good at telling myself a story that turned out much differently.

Strength – the mastery that comes from constructive experience and understanding, the empowerment of coming through a scary experience unscathed, of knowing more about how the world works. Ultimately, this results in…

DB: Check. My confidence was through the roof.

Poise – grace, contentment, composure and a sense of balance in life."

DB: Check, again. I found a new level of contentment because I was able and willing to "play" in this new way.

As I read these elements all I can think of is what I've come to understand as the process of development. That these play elements are a great way to describe how it is we grow when we are willing to risk from a place of curiosity and possibility. When we reach back into ourselves and access the child who once walked onto the playground with a mixture of trepidation, energy and sheer unadulterated "kid-ness."

My invitation? Relocate the child in you. Remember what play used to mean; how you used it instinctively to fulfill and deepen your learning and your relationships. And remember that, above all, it was fun.

Laugh With Me

I closed my last post with the self-admonition to "live from my innocence." I was and am calling on the lightest, simplest, most joyful and curious part of me to be the shepherd of my development. It's a recognition, and a hard one at that, that I often allow myself to think too much, be too intense and too serious. That I am prone to heaviness, a massive need for control and a debilitating inner voice that beats me up when I don't think I've got it right or done enough.

Damn, I'm exhausted just writing about it. Actually living it is really no fun, either. So, I'm trying not to. But what does "live from my innocence" really mean? For today, I think it just means to laugh. And that I can do.

I love to laugh and I think I'm pretty good at it. I am silly. I like to dance silly dances and sing silly songs. As the youngest of six children in a pretty expressive and funny family, getting a laugh was a big deal. I learned how to do it early and often. I make people laugh by observing things out loud that others don't or won't. I get on the floor with the kids - we wrestle and tickle and give big squeezes, laughing until someone cries, or at least pushing the envelope.

I prefer comedy, especially lately. I love Tina Fey, Will Farrell, Robin Williams, Steve Carell, Seth Rogen, Adam Sandler, Conan O'Brien, Kristen Wiig, Demetri Martin, Jim Gaffigan and anyone else who risks being unfunny by just putting it out there and doing very, very funny things.

Mostly, I love Theresa, Kelly, Stephanie, Greg, Lia, Tim, Jeff, Curtis, Paul, Laura, Russ, Lisa, Duncan, Avery, Davis, Nancy, Jenn and the countless others with whom I've shared some big laughs over the years. (Let me recommend something to you that I just discovered: thinking of all the people who make/have made you laugh is a FANTASTIC exercise - I feel great right now!).

So, here's an invitation: let's laugh together sometime soon. Let's agree to feel lighter, simpler, more joyful and more curious. Let's look at life with a sideways glance and take in all the goofiness of it, not trying to make sense of it or control it, just appreciating how unbelievably funny so much of it really is.