The Career Clinic Blog

Once upon a time Darrell offered to help me organize my music. Brave man! Or should I say, clueless man. He didn’t realize what I’ve only begun to understand, that how you do anything is how you do everything.

First we collected all the different versions of the hundreds of songs I wanted to keep handy--in my netbook and on my MP3 player. I wanted multiple copies of some songs--the live version, the studio version, the versions of “One Shining Moment” that represented so many different NCAA basketball tournament seasons.

Then we had to decide which, for example, studio version to keep. At pennies a song and with the Internet at our fingertips, Darrell couldn’t understand why my choice for “This Old Guitar” sounds like you’re listening in front of a crackling fire. But that less-than-perfect recording whisks me back to a dorm room on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus. I can listen to something now that sounds like what I listened to then, which reminds me of being young and clueless but full of what I thought was promise.

Multiply this process by those hundreds of songs and you get…a project. It took years. We’d dig in, we’d put aside, we’d dig in again. Along the way we raised Katie, I wrote a few books, whatever.

Do I regret putting so much love into what amounts to my soundtrack? Are you kidding? This is life we’re talking. A life that--to borrow from Gregg Levoy--has mostly held my interest.

Now I wonder: “What happens after intermission?”

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When was the last time someone told you he regrets all those years he spent learning how to play the piano?

Exactly.

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Did Mr. Crankypants just light into you or send you a nasty text?

Before you discount everything he says, don’t you wonder why he’d waste his breath--or his keystrokes--if he didn’t think you were worth an honest conversation?

Maybe, just maybe, you have it coming. Even if you don’t, are you sure there isn’t a sliver of truth to what he’s saying?

I’d rather have all hell breaking loose once in a while than be told everything’s okay when it isn’t.

But that’s me.

You?

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Once upon a time the folks who supply us with bubble mailers started cramming them into smaller boxes. The result? Crumpled mailers that were difficult to open and difficult to seal.

If Darrell was running that company, he’d want someone to tell him about this. He wouldn’t want to lose customers and not know why. So he wrote a really nice letter and sent it along with a sample of the crumpled product.

The result? A really nice letter back--and a case of mailers that weren’t crumpled--to thank him for the trouble. We’re still using this supplier. They’re still using those smaller boxes, but they don’t pack as many mailers into each--and everything’s been arriving in good shape.

Next up, why you might want to thank a complainer--even if that person doesn’t take as much care as Darrell does when expressing his unhappiness.

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Do you grow more sure of things as you get older, or less?

I grow less sure. I think!

This was another wild day in the inspiration factory. We made plans, then changed them, then changed them back. I warned someone he’d never be able to help me with something that had been giving me fits since before I met Darrell, then thanked him for (you guessed it) helping. I think he helped, anyway. I can’t prove it yet. Though come to think of it, just convincing me it wasn’t the problem I’d been told it was is some kind of progress.

Someone else asked us about another plan, which had been mulled over and deliberated and announced--and as of his question, very likely to completely change. I mean, change back.

You know what I’m proud of? My willingness to admit we’re making things up as we go along. Dan Fogelberg once said--er, sang--that a heart held humble levels and lights your way. I'd like to think my heart is humble. I'm pretty sure my mind is ever-changing.

That’s good.

Right?

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Sometimes it doesn’t feel like you’re getting anywhere. Believe me, I know.

When that happens I hope you’ll remember a suggestion I heard once, to think of yourself on a boat. If you look out the front it doesn’t seem like you’re going very far, very fast. But when you look out the back? Oh! Get a load of that wake.

Feel better?

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Do you want to make something or sell something or manage something?

There’s nothing wrong with not wanting to be the boss. Lots of people get to the top of a corporate ladder only to find they miss doing what got them noticed--and promoted--in the first place.

My first real work buddy said it nicely, I think: “Happiness is closely connected to the end of that shovel.”

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Ever get caught in the teeniest, tiniest little fib? I did, once. By a form!

Katie had what we thought was asthma for a while--I’m hedging, because she grew in and out of it so quickly--and needed permission to have an inhaler at school. One of the forms had this question near the bottom: “Do you have a peak flow meter”--I think that’s what it was--“at home?” I guessed we did. Wasn’t that part of the inhaler she used at night? I checked yes.

The next question was, “Do you know what a peak flow meter is?” Well, yeah. The part of the inhaler I just mentioned. Right? I checked yes again.

And finally, “What is it?”

“Okay, fine,” I thought. “Busted.”

I went back and scratched out where I’d said yes to the first two questions. But I was enchanted. What kind of person packs a little surprise into an otherwise boring pile of paperwork?

Whoever it was, I wanted to meet. Heck, I want to be more like that.

Life’s too short to bore each other to death, eh?

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Darrell and I ran for an hour today. Usually it’s forty minutes.

I know, big deal. But…maybe.

Our routine is to jog for a minute and a half, surge for thirty seconds, repeat. We go all out on the surges, and take it so easy the rest of the time it looks like we’re walking with just a tiny bit of spring in our steps. Darrell isn’t that kind. He follows my lead, and says when we’re not surging it feels like we’re going in reverse.

But those ten hard minutes of a forty-minute trek--or fifteen on the sixty we did today--a few times a week are more than enough to keep us in shape. It’s our version of interval training, and it’s a heck of a lot easier on the knees than what the maniacs do. You know, the people who actually run the whole time they’re running.

What I can’t get over is the difference between forty minutes and sixty minutes. Five extra minutes of hard running, and I feel so good!

Go…figure.

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Don’t you love the scene in Legally Blonde when Elle realizes she’s never going to rate with Warner? When she says, “I'm never going to be good enough for you, am I?” You can almost see it dawning on her deep down inside that while he’s supposedly beyond her reach, the reverse is actually true.

One of the tasks of adulthood, I think, is to stop campaigning for people to like you. Knock yourself out to do good work and to be a good kid, sure, but be in it for the joy that gives you.

Expecting people to applaud or even notice? I think your time would be better spent…coloring!

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