taking small steps: light switch

Your job isn’t going quite the way you’d like. Perhaps it’s a recalcitrant employee, or if you’re on the other side of the door, an obstinate boss. Making even slight changes will go a long way toward showing your flexibility and understanding. Most people naturally and rightly respond to sincere effort. Stay an extra 10 or 15 minutes at the office a few days a week, or come in a bit earlier. Take all of five seconds to offer a good word or acknowledgement of a task well done.

Your relationships have become somewhat frayed. Perhaps it’s time or money, or lack of sleep. Take three minutes to buy your significant other a candle, fresh flowers, a gift certificate. Offer a quick massage before dinner. That note of affection you keep thinking about writing? Make a point of actually leaving it a few times a week or whenever the mood strikes. If you have kids, why not linger a bit more at the dinner table or the study desk? Take time out to honestly express your feelings, and request that they do the same. Make them an egg omelet once or twice a week before school.

You’ve gained some weight and your cholesterol level flirts uncomfortably with the 200 level. Perhaps it’s a lazy diet, the pull of the drive-through window, the unforgiving and relentless clock. Choose the small fries instead of the larger size. Ask for fat-free or sugar-free whenever possible. A non-fat latte, a diet Coke, dark rather than milk chocolate are all delicious alternatives barely distinguishable from their full-figured cousins. Don’t try all at once to eliminate the generous carb pockets that line your sides. See if you can take off a pound a week, five pounds a month, rather than something more extreme that’s likely only to make matters worse. Spend four extra minutes at the gym, run another quarter mile or walk two more blocks. Do 10 more sit-ups or lift an extra five pounds.

In all of these circumstances, small steps are doable and, over time, require little extra effort. Switching behaviors in increments rather than by canyons will make goals realistic and achievable rather than magnets for failure. Take it easy. Walk with a light step. For the better part of the day, you’ll more often than not find yourself—on.

dealing with daily pressures: fresh-squeezed juice

Your job promotion depends entirely on addressing daily pressures while completing extraordinary work by Friday for a project impacting the entire company.

Your spouse’s crucial work commitments cause all the week’s family responsibilities to fall on your shoulders alone.

You’ve lost your job and have accepted two or three jobs either within or outside your field rather than lose your house to foreclosure.

Your child’s or parent’s illness means that you’re burning candles on both ends of the day, as inattention or cutting corners is not within your repertoire.

These and countless other scenarios—faced by millions of people each calendar pass—point to the essential companions of positivity and selflessness that can make or break, that mean the difference between success and failure, that foster either normal breathing or a heart attack.

How do you respond when pushed to your supposed limits, when really squeezed? Do you lash out, become frayed to the core, let impatience and frustration seep under your skin? Do your work and relationships suffer, sometimes irreparably? To take just one example, he not only appears to embrace conflict but seems ever eager to squeeze as much as possible from it. Yet must that be the norm, particularly when so much is at stake?

Or are you able to step back, secure in your faith and abilities, constructive in your approach, guided by the realization that all-too-easily bred negativity will not extend your life by five minutes?

Living with integrity means not subjecting your commitments and responsibilities to the vagaries of an uncertain world. While true that doing your very best is sometimes not enough, you’ll at least be able to face tomorrow, to face your family and peers, to face life itself, with grace and equanimity.

And when doing your very best is in fact enough to get you over pitfalls and fresh problems, think about all the energy—the juice—generated by necessity that consistently leads to personal and career accomplishment.

Then let your capabilities speak for themselves.

the persistence of ego: flash lite

Each of us is born with distinct gifts, to be developed and expanded through discipline and desire, or to be left to fade through apathy and anxiety. They encompass the kaleidoscopic range of human experiences, from construction worker to concert violinist, from doorman to doctor, from gardener to golfer, from proctor to president. Yet why must society make delineations, create class categories, foster exclusivity?

A concert violinist must go through decades of disciplined practice on top of requiring the inborn gifts, yet is the construction worker—who labors through years of apprenticeship and stultifying weather conditions while helping to create the concert hall—a less valuable person?

A doctor must go through endless years of highly specific training and staves off disease, yet is the doorman—who helps to guard the doctor’s co-op against crime and murder, and keeps order—a less valuable person?

A professional golfer must devote immeasurable time to drives and putts while offering entertainment and ready aspiration, yet is the gardener—who maintains the course and cultivates beauty and oxygen with perpetual toil—a less valuable person?

A president, whether of company or country, must cultivate expansive education, political skills and charisma to guide and inspire groups of people with much at stake, yet is the proctor—who oversaw the president’s bar exam and ensures integrity and discipline within life-changing circumstances—a less valuable person?

These questions can be answered quite simply and directly. When guided by integrity on a daily basis, such positions require singular gifts and devotion while making tangible contributions to society. Who can say which is more valuable; who are we to judge?

Of course, absent the ethical aspect, the more-or-less-valuable answer becomes painfully clear. The New York Times’ Editorial Board, in “Truth and Lies in the Age of Trump,” years ago captured the current reality:

The rise of social media has been great in many ways. In a media environment with endless inputs and outlets, citizens can inform and entertain one another, organize more easily and hold their leaders accountable. But it also turns out that when everyone can customize his or her own information bubble, it’s easier for demagogues to deploy made-up facts to suit the story they want to tell. That’s what Mr. Trump has done. For him, facts aren’t the point; trust is. Like any autocrat, he wins his followers’ trust — let’s call it a blind trust — by lying so often and so brazenly that millions of people give up on trying to distinguish truth from falsehood. Whether the lie is about millions of noncitizens voting illegally, or the crime rate, or President Obama’s citizenship, it doesn’t matter: In a confusing world of competing, shouted “truths,” the simplest solution is to trust in your leader. As Mr. Trump is fond of saying, “I alone can fix it."

Even in the face of an avalanche of proof and press and pressure, for so many in public and private life the ego continues to rule and forbids them to simply come right out and say that they made a mistake, which more often than not would close the matter and that direct acknowledgement would itself engender trust!

Beyond those who demonstrate repeated ethical lapses, though, given the abundantly meaningful and measurable contributors in wide-ranging occupations across counties and countries, why in the world must ego be so prevalent? Is this person more precious than that one? Does he or she deserve more or less? Does a bank teller on the front lines of the customer experience making $35,000 a year not deserve the same respect as the investment banker putting together mergers making $3.5 million a year?

Are we using our resources to further contribute to society or to buy trophy items with little practical purpose other than to proffer ostentatious display? The Red Cross worker who assists with flash floods saves lives. The fireman who puts out flash fires saves lives. What does flash-clad self-aggrandizement save?

learning another language: cursed words

It’s a very safe bet that everyone reading this has either directly had the following experience or knows someone who has—spouse, child, friend, relative or colleague:

You’ve taken three or four years of high-school French or Spanish, then another three or four more years in college (where the offerings are significantly broader, extending from Mandarin to Russian to Hindi and all points between)… and six months later you remember a few dozen words and can't speak or read the language, as far from fluency as Paris is from Beijing. You’re intelligent and motivated, and did all of the requested homework, yet the results speak for themselves. I simply have no gift for languages, you think, and move on to other areas of study and projects that yield tangible results.

Given that being bilingual makes employees that much more valuable across our ever-smaller planet, that being bilingual engenders empathy and communication that transcend borders, that being bilingual stimulates the brain in myriad ways and can actually help to stave off or delay diseases like Alzheimer’s, why in the world are languages taught in a way that discourages progress, interest and results?

In one of countless articles and studies confirming the benefits of learning and speaking a foreign language, this excerpt from The Atlantic lyrically sums it up:

Multilingualism has a whole slew of incredible side effects: Multilinguals tend to score better on standardized tests, especially in math, reading and vocabulary; they are better at remembering lists or sequences, likely from learning grammatical rules and vocabulary; they are more perceptive to their surroundings and therefore better at focusing in on important information while weeding out misleading information (it’s no surprise Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot are skilled polyglots). And there’s certainly something to be said for the cultural pleasure of reading The Odyssey in ancient Greek or Proust’s In Search of Lost Time in French.

Yet the typical experience has students going to class two or three times a week, with perhaps an hour or two of homework. Such a schedule can no more reach fluency than a monkey can read The New York Times. And why is it that words like “rhinoceros” even come up, when words like “shelf” are left to languish in artificially closed closets of the practical?

Most motivated people can achieve fluency in their chosen language within 24 months.

What? A ridiculous claim, no? Millions of people can testify to the opposite, and more likely than not would respond by uttering or muttering a few foreign-language curse words among their limited word repertoires. Yet how many of those selfsame people devote 30 daily minutes to focused study? How many choose a language for which they feel an intense attraction—be that derived from the country’s literature, culture, architecture, food, history, music et al.? How many watch DVDs of their all-time favorite movies with the chosen foreign-language subtitles displayed? How many gather together in small groups to talk, study, laugh and support one another in the language du jour?

Parents, take note and push for more practical and enjoyable study for your kids. High school and college teachers, take note and do likewise for your students. The cursed words of frustration and futility can then be relegated to the dictionary where they belong, rather than to the classroom where they inevitably extinguish hope and joy.

the corporate ladder: climb and punishment

For so many teenagers, it's simply not an option. Their grades must be exemplary. Their SAT and ACT scores must be in one of those coveted eat-sleep-and-drink percentiles. Their college applications must be loaded with everything from athletics to community involvement. Their college grades must stand out, even when surrounded by standout students. Their graduate school years must reflect pinpoint focus. All of this more often than not leads to punishing 80-hour weeks at that longed-for corporate job, where creativity, freedom and empathy are shunted aside in favor of six-figure prestige and tireless climbing.

Companies like Google, with cash streaming in faster than it can be printed, can and do take advantage of that circumstance to encourage their employees to eat well, to exercise, to be creative, to give back—and set up their corporate campuses accordingly. Many more, though, under the constant pressure of relentlessly judged quarterly reports or simply meeting monthly expenses, demand more than the body can realistically sustain. Over time, sleep becomes a secondary concern and exercise a tertiary matter, with family activities fit in whenever possible.

And for those who make it to the top, or close to it, corporate annals are filled with stories like those of Mark McCormack, who turned his sports-marketing company IMG into a billion-dollar business only to die of a heart attack in a nursing home at age 72.

In his New York Times article, Tony Schwartz makes plain that “the demands of work for employees, at multiple levels across multiple industries, have become untenable.”

Yet the resulting salaries and benefits do provide for families, for clothes, for roofs, for cars, for college funds, for vacations, for “the good life”…. Given the ever-increasing competitiveness of our society, how does one realistically find that perpetually strived-for and almost abstruse balance?

This is hardly one of those questions that can be answered through any kind of well-defined or go-to procedure (though a heart-bypass operation or falling asleep at the wheel may well offer the needed catalyst). All that education and discipline, though, have provided unmistakable assets that can either be leveraged at the current employer or used to palpable advantage at another organization, when things like time off, time to volunteer within the community, time to care for loved ones in need and time for ongoing education can be negotiated for in advance.

The climb need not always be accompanied by punishment.

career choices: post-office

What happens after you get laid off from that desk job, the one that was doable and steady but never all that exciting? Or perhaps you just had your fill of getting the morning coffee, going in to the office each day, fulfilling your responsibilities with efficiency if not much enthusiasm, and eagerly awaiting that lifeline and timeline du jour: 5 o’clock.

To be able to turn a static life into one of stimulation

and #achievement is not an easy leap, and often requires courage to live with the resulting uncertainty. But provided that health is not an issue (a circumstance never to be taken for granted, especially among the younger generation to whom death is a mere mask), why not use the layoff notice or cubicle boredom as a springboard? Why not make the jump into something that enhances, that enables a real contribution rather than the contrition that often accompanies the status quo?

David brooks, in his telling op-ed article in The New York Times, put it succinctly:

We don't decide about life; we're captured by life. IN the major spheres, decision-making, when it happens at all, is downstream from curiosity and engagement. If we really want to understand and shape behavior, maybe we should look less at decision-making and more at curiosity. Why are you interested in the things you are interested in? Why are some people zealously seized, manically attentive and compulsively engaged?

Yes of course, there are many office jobs that provide creativity and camaraderie, paychecks and perks, benefits and brainstorms. By all means, go with them and make the most of the resulting opportunities that can be both plentiful and tangible.

But for those who fall within the elevator’s lower floors, take heed and hope. Press the buttons of your personal enthusiasms. Watch the double doors open and walk confidently outside.

There can be kaleidoscopic life post-office.

sitting in traffic: wait loss

The concept of sitting amongst interminable traffic is so widespread and familiar as to make regular clichés seem like fresh air in Beijing. How we respond can make the difference between being impatient and forlorn for the entire day or at peace with productivity in light of what cannot be changed.

Do we curse or listen to an audiobook? Do we throw up a thin body part in a form of gesticular cancer or do we put on a foreign language-learning CD? Do we feel stress to the point of needing a heart stent or do we call ahead and let them know that we’ll be late?

As with most negative circumstances, how we deal with the inevitable daily pitchforks inherent within automobile transportation reveals much about us. In addition to the above options, perhaps we’ll take that unanticipated extra half hour forced to lick the pavement and call a parent, a sibling, a friend in need. Perhaps we’ll take some quiet time—away from distractions as plentiful as they are unproductive—to carefully think about a child’s needs, a pending surgery, a particular career challenge.

In just one of innumerable high-profile instances of road rage—as common as the color red on stop signs—the neighborhood-watch volunteer from Florida, George Zimmerman, just missed getting shot on the road in an incident tied to a previous encounter. While thankfully most road-rage incidents do not involve players like Zimmerman who have had run-ins with girlfriends, an ex-wife and strangers, and who have killed an unarmed black teenager, how can any of us know that the tailgater behind us or the weaver in front of us will not cause broken ribs, a concussion or worse upon the body in our own driver’s seat?

Whether trolling the Northeast Corridor on I-95 as one of countless hot, packed French fries or stuck in a construction backup on the most local of roads, why lose limb, or worse, life? Must the experience take its toll? Why not take a pedal-step back and accept the peaceful route?

Wait loss then becomes minimal.

the absence of discipline: canceled checks

Why is it that ‘discipline’ so often seems like little more than 2½ four-letter

words? Or the rebuke of stern punishment? Or behavior as tightly controlled as a bank teller’s drawer? Why is it that typing this singular word into a Google search yields an overwhelming number of articles about disciplining children? Why is it that self-discipline more often than not evokes giving up statin-inducing cheesecake and excessive beer and lazy workdays? 

Because that’s where human instinct would have us go. Yet the absence of discipline yields little more than galling gluttony. The hard-to-digest fact—counterintuitive as it may initially seem—is that the joy of discipline is far more sustaining than pleasures as easy to obtain as pints of ice cream or Scotch. Take any kind of work (another four-letter word, but that’s for another time…) that you love and are highly motivated to achieve, then measure how it feels after four or five solid hours of intense work. Exhausted? Sure. Exhilarated? Equally sure.

This realization—coupled with its acceptance and implementation—has far-reaching practical significance covering a wide swath of society’s perpetual problems, from crime, violence and prejudice to addiction, obesity and debt. Disease is also an avenue that forces self-discipline, when the survival instinct has the dominant say. US Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor reveals it both plainly and profoundly:

My diabetes is such a central part of my life. It did teach me discipline. It also taught me about moderation. I've trained myself to be super-vigilant… because I feel better when I am in control.

Is there any downside to a healthier heart and lungs, increased knowledge, relentless curiosity? Are those not in fact highly palatable goals? All living beings, it seems, are prone to indulge if given the chance, no doubt a remnant of literally having to kill for that day’s food centuries ago, when a walk into a supermarket or grocery store was as inconceivable as airplane travel. There is great freedom in self-control, in discipline, whereas canceling the checks and balances that keep us healthy and persevering and learning and growing and maturing results in little more than an overdrawn body and a poverty of new brain cells.

Yet start to accrue interest beyond the body’s insatiable pleasure centers and taste what really lasts. Take account of what a productive life means—on our children, our society, our resources, our law and 24 other ours—to learn that language, make that discovery, help those people, donate to that charity, mentor that student, build those bridges, love that neighbor.

And in return? The abundance of discipline yields a level of gratitude and humility, concurrent with a denial of excess, that offers hope to the body and brain while palpably counteracting our otherwise cutthroat world.

on the surface: stock exchanges

It’s surely understandable that the small daily interactions most of us carry on each day—be they with bank tellers to retail clerks and everyone in between—don't plumb the depths of how we truly feel. Who has the time or inclination? Who would go into a Starbucks and in response to "How are you doing?" confess to feeling poignantly low in the wake of a friend's or family member's death? Or, for that matter, on the other side of the compass:"I just came from a six-mile run and feel incredibly grateful to be able to put one foot in front of the other."

I’ve recently been more deliberate with these kinds of interactions, by responding with a very brief but sensitive comment about life, politics, health, family, education et al. It’s been gratifying to recognize how quickly we can form strong connections with those whom we don’t really know, with the resulting warmth carrying throughout the day.

Taking a further step back from those universal avenues paved with little more than meaningless chit-chat while waiting for this cup of venti nonfat latte or that bank-deposit receipt, why is the tendency with even regular interactions to stay on the surface? Why do some personal exchanges remain filled with stock responses and clichéd dialogue, while others develop into warm, open relationships—whether the contact is daily, monthly or even annually?

Paul Simon’s “The Dangling Conversation” describes a devastating if all-too-common scenario that could apply equally between spouses, friends, siblings or parent-child relationships:

It’s a still-life watercolor

Of a now late afternoon

As the sun shines through the curtain lace

And shadows wash the room

And we sit and drink our coffee

Couched in our indifference

Like shells upon the shore

You can hear the ocean roar

In the dangling conversation

And the superficial sighs

The borders of our lives

One can argue that chemistry plays its part. Common interests and shared histories—whether painful, euphoric or humorous—also provide the pulleys for strong bonds. Yet our time on this earthly little planet remains ever brief, so why not look outward, beyond ourselves, while engaging for a moment with the dry cleaner, hotel desk clerk or Apple store salesperson? And for longstanding relationships, why not continue to relish commonalities and events large and small that keep life perpetually fascinating, rather than focus on the all-too-familiar?

For each of us, personal communication remains vital, despite the distance that texts and tweets and posts and pages allow. If even occasionally or briefly, think about warm and freshly brewed conversations vs. surface replies and stock exchanges. Then emotively profit from the resulting interactions.