UnAnswered Prayers (And Props to Garth)

So the other morning, I'm driving to the office: slowing up/slowing down; flipping through the radio; looking at the blackberry; juggling my coffee; flipping through the radio; thinking hard/hardly thinking; changing lanes; flipping through the radio; when BAM - it hits me:

No, not another car or anything like that; but impactful none the less. Believe it or not, I had happened upon the bitter-sweet Garth Brooks ballad, Unanswered Prayers. And man, I listened to the song, and lyrics, like I never listened to it before. Brought a lump to my throat; moisture to my eyes.

Yea, I know what your saying: "What What!? Dude, that's kinda lame, and like, not even old-school, retro cool." Whatever; I still liked it. And mostly I liked it because it made me think about how true that expression is -and how it applied to my life. Don't know what it was about that song at that moment, but I really personalized it to my life as it is now.

You see, right before I met my wife, I was going to join the CIA, and with any luck, be stationed in Europe, where I did most of my growing up. No kidding, I pined/yearned/romanced/longed-for, and literally prayed for a CIA gig where I could be one part Abbott, one part Bond (neither shaken nor stirred). True Story.

Well, suffice it to say, my prayers went unanswered; thankfully. Now, rather than being a cool, secret agent spy man, living in exotic locations, saving the world and getting all the babes - I'm now a cool (if i say so myself), visibly active family man, working for a loving, living in a suburb, with one smokin' babe (uh yea, that would be my wife), two fantastic kids, a dog, a cat, two frogs, and a hamster. Truly ... I'm one happy, blessed guy. And I still get to live vicariously as a spy through the movies. Talk about a package deal.

So you see gang, sometimes, unanswered prayers are good. Even better, is that genuine, heartfelt, compassionate, others-oriented prayers can and should be asked, and hopefully get answered. Pretty neat how that works out.

Prayers Are Good (Even the unanswered).

The PorchLights Cause

As a friend of "The PorchLights Cause” ... which is to help young adults, as well as families, schools, employers, and communities - enjoy more happiness, compassion, and success, at work and life … we’d like to ask for your help.

You see, given the ginormous challenges and opportunities of today, it’s important that we do our best to live happy, balanced lives that respect, appreciate, and fulfill: good work, good business, good faith, good family, good caring, good community, good love, good learning, good money, good spirituality, good life, for good living. Oh yea, and whenever possible, to get up and dance (that's actually what I'm doing in the picture above; just don't laugh).

In other words – its important that we strive to THRIVE and PROSPER.

With that in mind, The PorchLights Group is asking for your support to help us achieve our goal for “books in hands” in 2009, which is 100,000; we have about 87,000 to go. (NP, right ;)

So please, keep doing what you can to help pass on our heartfelt purpose - to anyone and everyone who can help bring the book, and more important, the PorchLights Cause, into families, high schools, colleges, vocational schools, not-for-profits, philanthropic organizations/foundations, and progressive companies. We really do need, and appreciate, your support. In addition to using this blog and our website http://www.pocketporchlights.com/, to help promote our cause - feel free to forward this new YouTube video as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hWxm4nM4qY

Thanks again for your friendship and support.

Friendship and Support Are Good.

Embracing Our Differences

There's no doubt that as humans, we have many differences. Boy do we ever. And hopefully, we can celebrate, embrace, and accept our differences - as well as our respective feelings, style, emotions, desires, wants, goals, and the list goes on and on. Compassion and empathy are cool attributes to have. Bias and ignorance are not.

Yes, sadly, lots of folks don't know how to get along with lots of other folks. And that's a bummer. Especially if the differences are based on relatively simple things. Indeed, we live in a world where small differences can erupt into all-out war, figuratively and literally. And war sucks. (While writing this, I'm going old-school, and humming John Lennon's "make love not war" anthem, Give Peace A Chance; come on, and hum along. It's fun. Really!)

Now don't get me wrong: We shouldn't accept the type of differences that cause physical or emotional harm. Nope. And yes, there are some things in this world that we just can't be indifferent to, like domestic abuse, racism, and bigotry. But more often than not, our respective differences are mostly based on individualism, and non-violent personal preferences.

The thing is, even if we have differences ... and we don't look, feel, think, or see alike ... it doesn't mean that we can't still be best of friends; at the very least, cordial. If you doubt this, just check out this video below, and see for yourself. After all, who would of thought that an elephant and a dog could be best of buds. If they can do, so can we. Rrrrrruuufffff!

Differences Are Good.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4696315n

The (More) Golden Rule

You've inevitably heard about The Golden Rule, right? Basically, it suggests that we should treat people the way that we want to be treated. While that sounds good in theory - the reality is, it's somewhat flawed. Now granted, The Golden Rule is based on Scriptures, and I dig Scriptures. That said, I'm hoping that the Good Lord will permit me some leeway here; and since God is wonderfully kind and just, I'm hoping He will accept my slight "enhancement." So here goes.

The flaw is in the expectation that we all appreciate how to give, and how to receive, good treatment. That's not the case, is it?! Moreover, there's lots of selfish, me-oriented folks who just aren't nice - and don't care how other people feel. So - is it okay for these folks to treat others badly, just because they're accepting of bad treatment. Nope, don't think so.

We see this phenomenon a lot in corporate America, where in some companies, senior management is indifferent to bad behavior amongst fellow senior managers. And so they pass on that indifference to the folks who work for them. It's a trickle down bad manners thing.

That said, what The (More) Golden Rule should say, is that we should treat people the way "they" want to be treated; not the way "we" want to be treated (because again, "we" could be a big-time jerk, whose happy to be treated, and treat, like a big-time jerk). And this isn't just a semantics thing. It's not. You see, in this interpretation, we become others-oriented, as opposed to self-oriented. And being truly others-oriented; sensitive to their desire/style of communication and interpretation, is a very good orientation to have, regardless of your title or position.

Others-Oriented is Good.

The Joy, Fear and Agony of Parenting

Being a parent is an incredible experience, full of joyous moments. At times however, there are moments of fear and agony. It's a package deal.

Recently - I experienced both, almost simultaneously. You see my son was having a weekend of unfathomable success on the hockey rink (proud dad says boastfully ;). Over the course of four games, he had 13 goals, including one game with 7 - in just two periods - as he was forced to not shoot in the third period! For the record, I'm told that Gretzky's best game was 6 goals, in three periods. But whose counting.

Now during his final game, I took my daughter to get her a blue slushy. You see, that's the best part of her having to freeze, while incredibly bored watching her big brother (who she adores, but doesn't know it yet) push a stupid puck, with other stupid boys, around a stupid ice rink. She plays soccer; that's her thing - and she's really good at it.

To make a long story short, while I was at the concession stand, giggling with my daughter - my son scored when I wasn't looking, and crashed into the boards afterwords, again, when I wasn't looking. By the time I turned around to see what was going on - I saw my son crumpled up on the far end of the ice, grimacing, whipping off his helmet, and neck guard, and then trying to stand up - only to crash back morbidly to the ice. Oh my God! - I said to myself. Then I proceeded instantaneously to think horrible thoughts. After all, I never saw what happened, so my mind went where a parents' mind goes: to the worst possible scenario. In my mind, I envisioned that my son had crashed head-first into the boards and had broken his neck, and might be paralyzed. Its true: my mind raced to the worst conclusion possible, and I freaked out. I lost it. Boy did I ever.

Within seconds, I ran out of the noisy concession area, and through the doors to the rink. Then it got even worse. Because the silence was deafening! - which made me think the fans where also petrified at what might have happened to my son. Everyone was totally quite; totally still. Even the other players were all on the ice, taking a knee: silently and solemnly. I ran faster - my heart pounding and aching; my stomach in knots, and my eyes starting to well-up with tears. I was scared more than I have ever been scared as a parent in my life so far (and I've had scary moments before). The agony was excruciating.

Thankfully, one of the dads from our team caught me on my rampage, and told me that he just got the wind knocked out of him, which meant that he did not hit the boards head-first, but probably crashed into them backwards (that happens in hockey). With a temporary shot of relief, and a dose of new found calm - I finally got close enough to my son to see that indeed he was hurt, but his limbs were working, and it really was a bad case of getting the wind knocked out of him, in a big-time way.

When my son finally got to his feet; the players smacking their sticks on the ice in appreciation, and the crowd cheering at his recovery (and his goal - I hope ;) - my agony went back to joy. All was okay: although my son was very scared, as that type of hit, and getting the wind knocked out of him like that, had never happened to him before. I guess it turned out that our joy, agony, and our fear, was shared by both of us, at the same time.

Now given the choice, I'll undoubtedly take (and pray for) the joy, over the agony and fear. But you know what? The occasional bad stuff, which will inevitably happen - makes me appreciate the good stuff, all that much more. As the saying goes: no rain - no rainbow.

Rainbows are Good.

Let The Synergies Begin

Hip Hip Hooray! Let's here it for our new president, Barack Obama, and his inaugural speech. It was: Brilliant.

For starters, I liked the fact that it wasn't over-engineered. Sure, it had (and needed) an inspirational and impactful style, tone and content.

He shoots; he scores!

For me, and hopefully most of us, it wasn't so much of a "speech," as it was a "mandate." A humanistic, even-tempered, balanced, matter-of-fact, business-like, action-oriented mandate.

And we need it. Do we ever.

To paraphrase our new president, and for that matter, to codify how I think most of us feel already - the basis for our national (let alone global) mandate is:

SYNERGIES.

Its time to "synergize" realism with idealism; vision with action; faith with accountability; young with old; religion with religion; work with play; laughter with focus; data with intuition; business with purpose; specifics with anecdotes; taste with substance; strategy with execution; trust with verification; inspiration with sensibility; individualism with collectivism; country with country; heart with brain; aspirations with reality. (You get it?)

Now, do to space and timing, I'm going to stop there. But as you can see, the list goes on, doesn't it? In fact, if you have the time, why don't you have some fun with this, and make up some of your own tag-team synergies. (On behalf of my kids, they suggested cold milk with warm cookies; I like that one too.)

Ultimately, we do all of this synergy, synergistically - in hopes of living happy, healthy, compassionate, economically-sound, faith-based, prosperous, loving, balanced, family-oriented lives. That's the purpose of our collective mandate.

Synergies Are Good.

Drink-Up The C&Cs!

Now before you go thinking that C&Cs some fancy, expensive, mind-numbing, liver-punishing, bad-mood-arising, alcoholic drink - it's not. Nope - no booze.

On the contrary, C&C is a wonderfully healthy, all natural, non-alcoholic, body-transforming, mind-empowering, "green" life elixir - one that can help all of us live happier, friendlier, healthier, compassionate, prosperous lives.

C&C doesn't require a glass ... let alone ice, garnish, or umbrella. And it's absolutely, positively, no-doubt-about-itly more refreshing, and tastier, then the one in the picture.

Really, it's gooooooooooooooooood!

Best of all - C&C is totally FREE. Costs nothing; nada; zero; zilch. Everyone can drink it, serve it, and enjoy it: anywhere, anyplace, anytime. Given the economy and desperation of today, you have to like the value prop of free and beneficial.

So, what's a C&C you ask, and what are the ingredients? Well, C&C stands for Composure and Compromise. Best served and sipped, neither shaken or stirred. Now admittedly, I'm having some fun with that thirsty metaphor. And no, I haven't been drinking. While the parallel of the "drink" metaphor is a stretch (you think?), the image/purpose of the metaphor, more importantly the C&C part - is absolutely, unequivocally spot on.

Think about it: if we all drank a C&C every morning, before we went into the world - we, and the world, would be in a better place. So much of our problems come from the fact that we lose our composure, and our ability to compromise. I'm not talking about compromising the integrity of things like love, family, trust, truthfulness, etc. etc. etc. Can't compromise that stuff! I'm talking about the type of composure and compromise that helps us be empathetic, compassionate, brotherly, agreeable, friendly, and those other positive, humanistic traits that can help us live happier, healthier, others-oriented lives.

If by chance we forget to drink our daily dose of C&C in the morning, and something happens during the day to make us feel un-composed, or we're unwilling to compromise on stuff that should have a compromise - then just smack your palm to you forehead, and shout out: "I gotta have a C&C!" (Yea, just like they do in the V8 commercials). Given the choice though - lets stick to drinking our C&C first thing in the morning (less embarrassing that way), right after we brush our teeth. After all, fresh breath, and some C&C ... along with a good breakfast, a good prayer, and good family TLC ... helps make the day, a good day. You in?

Composure and Compromise Are Good.