Being the hopeless romantic that I am, I was drawn
towards a few lines in a poem I heard. I
would say to Sandy, “Come grow old with me; the best is yet to be – the second
half, for which the first was made.” The
Internet is telling me this is not exactly how the poet put it, but I like my
version better. In any case, the
sentiment seemed more romantic when Sandy and I were in midlife. Now what do we do? Looking forward in anticipation is replaced
with looking back gratefully. Elsewhere I mentioned the poem I wrote for Sandy
on our 42nd anniversary in 2008.
Here is an excerpt that captures not only the gratitude, but the
celebration:
1 Remember in the early
morn, when the road was strange and new?
2 The starting line not
far behind, the sun just breaking through?
3 Beginner’s luck? Beginner’s love? We simply ran the road.
4 Side by side, stride
for stride, sharing…was there a load?
5 The journey was the
destination; the struggle was the prize
6 The joy we know, the
happy glow should come as no surprise
7 Love ripens with age,
becomes so sweet by being allowed to grow.
8 We tended and nurtured
the precious seeds before the weeds could show.
9 And now the rewards of
a love well spent: Satisfaction, contentment and joy,
10 To have a life of
immeasurable worth that started with a girl and a boy.
If I may editorialize, the first four lines are inspired
by road racing, which was a large part of my life for many years. The 26.2 mile marathon is also known as a 42
kilometer race, so the advent of our 42nd anniversary triggered thoughts of the
marathon. Since marathons take 4 to 5
hours for the masses to finish, they usually start in the pre-dawn in the
summertime in hopes that most runners will finish before it gets too hot. We are usually still in the early miles when
the sun breaks through the clouds. The
image of two people running side by side, stride for stride is very
typical. Most people enter a marathon
along with at least one friend who runs about the same pace. If not, you soon identify someone who is
running at about your pace, and it makes it easier for both of you to hold the
pace if you chit-chat and “share the load,” so to speak.
My question, “Was there a load?” refers to the fact, to which
Sandy and I can attest, that being happily married and in love always seemed
easy for us. We used to hear how
marriage was hard work, how you had to work at it, etc. We would look at each other and wonder: when
does that start? The rest of the lines
above are about looking back gratefully.
I guess you could say that the first four lines are about looking
forward in anticipation, and the last six lines are about looking back
gratefully, with the exception of line 8, which touches on how we did it. But tending and nurturing the precious seeds
of love hardly qualifies as hard work; at least for us it didn’t.
Getting back to my “ready, willing and able” theme, Sandy
and I were obviously willing, and that really does separate the wheat from the
chaff, so to speak. What percentage of
the people would be willing to do what Sandy and I did at that time, while
simultaneously having three babies and living on one income? If anyone says that Sandy is not as strong,
capable and focused as she could be, I want to tell them, “You should have seen
her in her day. She makes you modern
young whiners look puny at best.” When
Sandy was in labor with Michelle, I was by her bedside, but I was concentrating
on my math homework. She would make
noise with her contractions, and I would ask her to be still so I could concentrate. (True story!).
She was in labor a total of about 36 hours before the
medical staff concluded that she could not dilate, and we needed to do a
Cesarean or “C” section. She was
completely exhausted. In those days I
completely trusted the doctors, nurses and staff. It never entered my head to question why they
waited so long. When they decided on the
C section, I remember telling the doctor that Sandy was OK with that, and he
said, “At this stage, the patient doesn’t get a vote.”
After Michelle was born and Sandy was resting comfortably
in recovery, I went up to her and tried to hug her and share my excitement and
enthusiasm with her. She seemed so
unexcited and unenthused that I was concerned.
It was either she or one of the staff that had to remind me what she had
just been through. What a dope! Who knew?
By the way, in those days, the husband was not allowed to be in the delivery
room during a C section, so I didn’t get to witness the birth. Also in those days, once a woman had a C section
she would not be allowed to go into labor in the future. She had to have the rest of her babies, if
any, by C section. So I never got to
witness the births of Bobby or Amy, either.
When it was time for Amy to be born, I asked the doctor
whether he could put a zipper in afterwards, instead of sewing her up. On a more sober note, the doctor encouraged
Sandy to have her tubes tied during the C section to ensure that she would
never get pregnant again. We decided
that was a good idea. Three was plenty. As a side benefit, Sandy never had to go on
birth control pills, so avoided any related side effects that some women
experience.
But getting back (again) to the willingness part of
preparation for success, this willingness to “go the extra mile,” to “do what
it takes,” etc: how much credit can we take personally, versus how much was it
simply an inborn part of us, like being left-handed or being pretty? Who knows where that willingness comes from?
That question also pertains to the “able” part of my three-legged
stool. As I have discussed or will
discuss elsewhere, no-one was more surprised than me to discover that I could
do college level work at all, let alone at the “A” level. My memories of grade school and high school
were all about sports, socializing and later being the class clown type. I didn’t get good grades, and I don’t
remember learning much of anything. Yet
when I took the LaSalle Extension University Real Estate course (1966-67) and
later the first courses in junior college (1967-68), I found I had no trouble
understanding what they were teaching me or answering the questions based on
the materials I had just read.
It was much, much later in life that I realized that most
people do not have the reading comprehension ability that I was taking for
granted. I couldn’t believe that a
person could read a few paragraphs and then not be able to answer some
reasonable questions about what they just read!
In a similar vein, one of our favorite hikes when we are staying at one
of our timeshares is called the Bob Jones Trail, and the question popped into
my mind right away, “Who is or was ‘Bob Jones’?” To my amazement, the people working behind
the counter in the lobby, and frequently giving people directions to the trail,
had no idea who Bob Jones was. They
referred to the Bob Jones Trail many, many times and never thought to ask, “Who
is/was Bob Jones?” That seems incredible to me.
The “world series” of professional hockey is called the Stanley
Cup. So far no avid hockey fan has been
able to answer my question, “Who was Stanley?”
Unbelievable!
Of course, the “ability” leg encompasses more than
curiosity and reading comprehension. I
found I had a pretty good head for arithmetic and a real interest in
literature, philosophy and psychology. I
took the introductory classes in accounting and economics in junior college and
could grasp the concepts readily.
Freshman English was an eye-opening exposure to the writings and
thinking of great people I had basically never heard of before. At Stanford I took a six-week summer course
with the incredibly ambitious title of “World Literature and the History of
Ideas.” Can you imagine studying either
world literature or the history of ideas in six weeks? How about a lifetime? We read so many books
and short stories in so short a period of time that it is now only a blur, but
at the time I was enthralled and excited about diving in and finding out what
these books and authors were all about.
I chose the Accounting field based on the introductory
courses in junior college and the observation discussed elsewhere that the want
ads were in alphabetical order: Accounting, Business, Controller, etc. I chose the Economics major at Stanford
because they did not offer an undergraduate program in Accounting. Stanford has the famed Graduate School of
Business, where they cater to candidates with more technical undergraduate
degrees, such as science, math and engineering.
Based on the introductory Economics courses in junior college, I knew I
would enjoy and do well in that major.
I actually applied to Stanford’s Graduate School of
Business as I was finishing up my undergraduate work, but the bias toward
technical degrees, combined with the off day I had taking the SATs served to
prevent acceptance. At Berkeley I needed
to take the two year MBA program, instead of the one year program, due to my
lack of higher level business and accounting classes at Stanford. Seems like a catch 22, but it was mainly due
to my “stumbling along” approach with no real idea of what I wanted to do in
life, except make more money, raise a family, etc.
To complete the thought on “ready, willing and able,” it
seems clear to me that I was one of the fortunate ones who had the ability, was
willing to work hard and sacrifice over a long period of time, and was more
than ready when the opportunity came along.
One of our American ideals is that of a meritocracy, combined with equal
opportunity. Out of the other sides of
our mouths we speak of equal outcomes, or at least less unequal outcomes. We hear that “No person should go hungry in
the United States of America,” or one of those cries that begins, “If we can
put a man on the moon, surely we can… (fill in the blank)”.
From my experience, we do not even have equal
opportunity, let alone equal outcomes, in that people are not equally “ready,
willing and able” to function in our meritocracy. Most do a lot worse than I did, but certainly
not because I am a superior person. A
lot of the ability was inborn and, I suspect so is a lot of the willingness. How much credit can I really take for
attributes I was born with? What I am
very proud of, however, is that I did the best I could with what I had. There is nothing sadder than unused
potential.
Another way that I think of this is the two-pronged idea
of aptitude and attitude. You won’t get
far trying to accomplish something for which you have no real aptitude, and
where do those aptitudes come from?
Attitude refers to that willingness, I guess. It may be that aptitudes are more inborn, but
shaped by environment, while attitudes come more from environment, and less
from inborn attributes. We’ve all heard
of children born into disadvantaged situations who turn out to be great people;
and children born into advantage and privilege who turn out to be really lousy
people. But in general, if a boy, for
example, learns from the adult males around him that the way to get money is to
apply for government or private charity – that holding down a job is for suckers
– then he will not develop the willingness to maximize his potential. The exceptions are those who are not only
blessed with aptitude, but who develop the attitude – the willingness to do the
best they can with what they’ve got.
This is a little off the subject, but as a young, then
middle-aged, then older runner, who slowed down, just like all the rest of the
aging runners, I have enjoyed hearing and retelling the story about a great
violinist who was performing before a live audience when one of the strings
broke on his instrument. He continued
and completed the piece he was playing without the string, somehow. Afterwards, a friend and admirer back stage
asked him why he didn’t stop and take the time to find another violin, tune it
up, and start over. He reportedly said
that, just as in every other area of life, you do the best you can with what
you have, and at some point in life, you do the best you can with what you have
left.
We didn’t give up running, but we more or less gracefully accepted that
our best wasn’t what it used to be. That
was no reason not to do our best.
I totally admire the high achievers in our society – I
mean the great leaders, athletes, entertainers and the like – in that they did
their very best with the potential they were born with or acquired. They put in the work; they submitted their
egos to a coach or mentor, and they pulled the very best out of
themselves. They had good
attitudes. While nothing is sadder than
unused potential, nothing is more inspiring to me than watching someone with
great ability maximize their potential.
The hard truth is that Americans fall into a very wide
range of potential (attitude and aptitude), which in a meritocracy results in a
very large gap between the wealthiest and poorest among us. As far as I can see, there is no fair way to
redistribute wealth, except with the permission of those who have earned it in
our system. Taking from one who
rightfully owns something, without permission, and giving it to someone who
needs it more, no matter how noble the motivation, is confiscation (in my
humble opinion).
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