Are You In Your Beautiful, Little Rut?

Photo by Wolfgang Hasselmann on Unsplash

Have you ever been on a farm that uses those giant sprinklers, anchored at the center, that sweep in a massive circle? Those are called irrigation pivots. Pivots, for short.

During periods of heavy irrigation, the massive structures roll slowly along the wet ground, carving deeper ruts with each pass. At times, the ruts can get so deep that a regular pickup truck can get stuck trying to cross. So, farmers have to take the time to repair the ruts in key places, like farm roads, in order to be able to safely drive across a pivot’s path.

The metaphor of ‘being stuck in a rut’ is the idea that we develop habits or patterns of behavior that have become dull and unproductive yet hard to change.

The metaphor has a negative connotation, for sure. The image of the irrigation pivot digging deep trenches in the ground as it moves also paints the picture of increasing difficulty in a farmer’s life when being a farmer is already not easy.

Does that mean ruts are always a bad thing?

For 25 years, I’ve woken up nearly every weekday to go to work. Let’s suppose, after taking some vacation days, that there are 230 work days in a year. Over the course of 25 years, that’s 5,750 days. I’ve never worked an 8-hour-a-day kind of job, so let’s put the average number of hours worked at 10. That’s easy math. Now we’re looking at 57,500 hours.

I’ve traded that time for money (most of the time). The money I earn serves a purpose. It provides for my family. It pays taxes to support infrastructure and some worthwhile government programs (some not worthwhile ones too). It is given to charitable organizations and to support individuals in need. It’s used for recreational activities. It’s used (too often) for trips to the convenience store.

The principles I outlined in “Is Courage Just Stupidity with a Purpose?” are important to consider when evaluating ruts in life. I’ve always wanted to work for myself, but the practical reality of providing for a large family has kept me in the “rut” of working for someone else. For most of those 57,500 hours, that hasn’t been a bad thing. I’ve been able to use my skills to help businesses solve some complex business problems. That’s rewarding.

In other words, the rut, for the most part, hasn’t been bad. Many times, it’s been wonderful. I wake up day after day after day, go to the same job with the same people, and enjoy the time I have with them. We laugh together, share stories, and get stuff done.

Jeremy Goldberg gets credit for the statement: “Courage is knowing it might hurt, and doing it anyway. Stupidity is the same thing. And that’s why life is hard.”

Dieter F. Uchtdorf, who flew professionally for Lufthansa German Airlines then retired as Senior VP of Flight Operations, shared a story about a group of everyday people trying to move a rather large piano. The story itself isn’t remarkable. I’ve helped moved dozens of pianos in my life. However, an important point emerged from his telling of that particular story:

Stand close together and lift where you stand.

At times, it takes courage to stay where you are, knowing that the risks associated with change may outweigh the good you do where you are. An all too familiar example is of the single mother raising small children who is stuck in a job she’d rather not be doing, but she sticks with it year after year because it provides sufficient maintenance for her family. 

Another example might be the young father who works multiple jobs so his wife can stay home with their children rather than putting them in daycare.

Ask the mother or father if they feel like their sacrifice is worth it. Ask them if they would do it all again for the sake of providing for their family. Sometimes, children grow up with deep gratitude for the sacrifice of their parents. Sometimes, they grow up resenting what they didn’t have. Rarely does the opinion of the child influence whether the striving parent would do it all again.

Then again, sometimes there is recognition that the courage to get out of the rut and the associated risk is low enough that a change becomes the thing that propels you forward.

Here’s the point: don’t make a change just because the talking heads and social media tell you that the grass is greener. I once left a decent job to chase the job of my dreams only to find out the grass was greener because of the ample application of manure. Thankfully, my decent job boss gave me my job back when the dream job fell apart.

Sometimes, staying in the rut is exactly where you need to be, and that can be beautiful. After all, farmers have been dealing with ruts their whole lives, but what they do is so important that they wouldn’t have it any other way.

Leaving the Noise Behind

 

Photo by Jelleke Vanooteghem on Unsplash

I recently read a beautiful essay by Don Johnson (not that Don Johnson). It was one of those essays that stirs the heart and somehow elicits both joy and sadness at the same time.

I aspire to write essays of the same caliber as his and John P. Weiss’s someday.

The central theme of the essay is the idea of leaving things behind. “Leaving things behind,” he says, “creates more space for new things, freedom, and growth.”

A common theme in my life is that life is full of the noise of things clamoring for my attention. For far too long, I’ve given outsize attention to the noisiest of things which are not often the things of greatest value. The adage, “the squeaky wheel gets the grease” has been latched onto by so many things of little value.

In his article, Mr. Johnson suggests that it’s okay for us to “leave behind what no longer serves you with gratitude and kindness.” It’s an interesting departure from a growing social norm that we leave employment, leave relationships, leave political and social affiliations with as much noise as possible — with public declarations that such and such or so and so has lost our support because of x, y, and z.

What he suggests is that, even when making a departure from a difficult situation, it’s okay to have gratitude for valuable lessons learned in that situation. That takes a lot of emotional maturity that I don’t necessarily possess but I’m working on.

I believe the world is as noisy as it is because it’s filled with people who are desperate to be heard. There’s this constant pull to change, improve, and refine everything around us. That’s not necessarily a bad thing — personal growth comes from the stretch and strain of striving to be better than we are — but it’s a mentality often driven more by external pressure than a real desire to be better.

Mr. Johnson concluded his article with a profound and simple statement:

I felt good accepting things as they were and leaving behind the idea it would be better if they were different.

At first, letting go of the idea that everything needs to be constantly refined, improved, and polished can be difficult. After letting go of that expectation, the idea that the world — or even my own life — must be other than what it is gives way to an increased capacity to hear the quieter, more enduring parts of myself.

Make no mistake. It takes work to allow these quieter parts to guide us toward what really matters: greater presence, small moments of wonder, and growth in contentment rather than constant change.

I’m still working on embracing this quieter acceptance. I’m discovering a purpose not rooted in reshaping everything all the time. It’s an interesting thought that we have to allow space for things to bring meaning. With all the noise in the world today, it won’t happen by accident. I’m learning that it’s not about trying to shout over the noise. It’s about listening to a very small voice inside me — one that I’m helping grow — that remains steady, resilient, and more peaceful.

Counting the Real Things in Life

 

Photo by Trust "Tru" Katsande on Unsplash

Eve Arnold recently wrote an article that has stuck with me with me. In it, she wrote:

If you can, even for just a second, stop where you are, look around and count all the real things in your life, you’ll realise, you’re much richer than you think.

My employees know I’m the kind of person who engages in far more than I can ever accomplish in a day. I have more unfinished projects than I can count because I’m constantly distracted by either a higher priority or because I have a hard time saying no (mostly the latter).

I spend most of my waking hours in some degree of overwhelm.

Recently, I spent some time in the desert wilderness of Southern Utah camping with my family. We decided to leave at 4:30 am on the day of our trip. We woke up just after 2:00 am, finished our packing, and got on the road by 4:45.

Mornings are my thing, so I didn’t have any problem driving as my family settled back into peaceful slumber in the car (except for my youngest who stayed awake the whole 3.5 hour drive).

I regularly kiss my wife goodbye in the morning while she sleeps, but it’s not often that I see her sleep as daylight creeps over the horizon. Time slowed down just a little that morning each time I stole a glance at my wife as she slept. It’s an increasingly rare privilege to be married to your best friend. My relationship with my wife is one of the most real things I know.

We arrived at our campsite just after sunrise. The air was still crisp; a light breeze rustled the polychromatic leaves that had just begun to fall from the trees.

Days spent camping are paradoxically long and short. The hours seemed to stretch on as we alternated between just hanging out at camp and hiking in various places of the 45,000-acre wilderness area around us, yet sunset arrived before we knew it.

Time around the campfire singing silly campfire songs has been a tradition in my wife’s family for more than 70 years. My mother-in-law plays her guitar with the family singing along as best as they can. There’s never any judgment around how well a person sings or even if they choose not to participate. When they were little, every one of my children fell asleep in our arms as we sat around the camp fire singing.

When the distractions of everyday life are removed, it’s far easier to stay focused on the things that matter most; the real things. For me, this is a list of a few of the real things in my life.

• My wife. I feel so fortunate that my wife is, in all things, my favorite person. We laugh together, cry together, have intellectual conversations together, and watch Hallmark movies together.
• My children. An unknown author said that, “Children are the quiet miracle of a life unfolding before your eyes — a reminder that love is timeless, growth sacred, and every small moment together a gift that shapes you as much as you shape them.” That summarizes how I think about my children often. I’d be lying if I said that was always the case.
• My religion. I am devoted to my faith. I believe that religion has the potential to bring out the best in me and helps me see the best in others.
• My extended relationships. Outside of my wife and children, there are relationships in my life that I cherish above all. These might be relationships with extended family or friends.
• Reading. There are few things that bring calm into my life more than reading a good book. This is probably the thing I lose touch with more than anything when work gets busy. Well, that and my extended relationships that tend to get neglected when things are hectic.
• Helping others. Serving others is something that’s very real to me. In my employment and especially outside of it, I derive a lot of satisfaction from helping others solve their problems.

In my life, I’ve never had to deal with food insecurity. My family has always had a safe place to live. I acknowledge there are hundreds of millions of people worldwide for whom that is not a reality. At times, I’ve been given to excess, and I am self-aware enough to realize that my excess could have been better used to lift others.

Coming back to what Eve said, the real things in life bring me to quiet reflection on the kind of wealth I really have, one that exists outside of status, schedules, and the demands of unfinished projects. Connecting with the real things in life brings irreplaceable richness to our lives. Even in the busyness of life, we’re surrounded by real things that we may overlook.

The next time you feel overwhelmed, pause and consider the real things in your life. It may just change how you view things.

Enough Is Worth Striving For

 

---

Photo by Carl Tronders on Unsplash

My favorite song, “Enough” by Gentri, opens with a haunting phrase:

I wake to face the day already buried under the noise that never fades.¹

That’s how my life feels most days, and most of it’s self-inflicted. I tallied the number of projects I’ve got under development apart from my day job. The number shocked me. I have twenty-eight separate projects going, ranging from one off reports to full-blown enterprise data analysis tools.

I suppose I’ve always thrived on having a lot to do. I enjoy slow activities like reading so it’s really not that I’m trying to avoid being bored. Perhaps I do have a mild fear of silence, except that my mind is never quiet.

In the last year, my capacity to keep my arms around everything that’s going on has diminished to about one-fifth of what it was just a year ago. That is, of course, proportionate to the number of projects I’m working on and that each of those projects clamors for my attention daily.

I often jump from one project to the next which exacerbates that problem. 

A few days ago, I read something written by Eve Arnold² that is profound in its obviousness.

Life isn’t all about moving the needle, sometimes it’s just about living today as lovely as you can.

There’s a tragic irony about people approaching burnout: it’s that many of us believe if we just work harder for a little longer, we’ll get through it and “everything will be okay” on the other side. It’s a logical fallicy that can literally be the death of you.

We had a family trip planned for an entire week. My wife’s been watching the anxiety build around my work, and offered that perhaps I should stay home so I could get some things done.

For a moment, I seriously considered her offer. I hadn’t been any help to her in getting things ready, and I’m pretty sure when that offer came she considered me the source of all life’s problems.

I didn’t take her up on that, and as I’m writing this article, the sun is just beginning to peak over the red cliffs that are so prominent in the area where we are.

A dark picture from the back porch where we’re staying just as the sun creeps over the horizon.

My amazing wife and me on a hike that my youngest declared “the best hike he’s ever been on.”

To be fair, on this “camping trip” we elected not to sleep in tents or trailers but to stay in a lovely home in St. George, Utah. As Jim Gaffigan proffered, “camping is what we did before we had houses.”

Still, the day activities outside enjoying time with family and friends reminds me that there are far more important things in life that deserve my attention than a job. Yes, I need to work to provide for my family, but work often becomes far too important a thing.

D. Todd Christofferson recently wrote, “One can find real satisfaction in a profession, vocation, or service, and all of us are benefited by what devoted and talented people in many fields of endeavor have accomplished and created.” He continued with a caution, “Still, it is possible that devotion to career can become the paramount focus of one’s life. Then all else becomes secondary.”

His statement stung just a little, because there have been times in my life when I have given up far too much time with family for the sake of work. I have allowed myself to be taken advantage of by my employers who are avid proponents of the idea that “pizza is great compensation for free work.”

As I listen to the birds and the muted conversations of people walking by as they enjoy the pristine morning, I’m reminded that enough is worth striving for.

I could go off on a diatribe about how we consistently undervalue what we do, for today, this is enough.

---

¹I’m a believer that if the whole world would listen to the music of Gentri, we would have world peace. Head to YouTube or your favorite streaming service and listen to “Enough”, “Don’t Let Go,” and “Home” by Gentri, in that order. If you’re not weeping by the end, listen again.

²Eve Arnold has a profound way of reminded me of what should be obvious. I’m approaching my 50th year, but am not too old to think I can’t learn something from a 30-year-old “youngster.”

Why It's Hard to Serve Others

Photo by Fernando Venzano on Unsplash

Hurricane Katrina pounded the US Gulf Coast with relentless ferocity for 8 days in August of 2005. It caused an estimated $125 billion (or more) in damage — including the destruction of 300,000 homes — across 90,000 square miles of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. More than 1,800 people lost their lives during the storm.

The White House Office of Faith estimated that 550,000 volunteers flocked to the area in the hours, days, and weeks following the storm. In the second year following the storm, another 50,000 people were added to that number as people continued an unparalleled show of support for those impacted by the worst hurricane in recorded history.

I live in a city 1,700 miles from the hardest-hit area, yet organizations near where I live were the first to respond with relief supplies. 14 semi-loads of food, water, and other life-sustaining items were deployed within hours of the call for help with millions of dollars of additional supplies and tens of thousands of volunteers to follow.

It’s one of those periods in US history that reminds me what has made the United States of America such a wonderful place to live. The selfless service given by so many inspired and humbled me.

I remember watching from afar, wishing I had the kind of job where I could just drop everything and go help in a crisis.

It’s true that grand gestures of service like this require a measure of sacrifice from the giver. Given the numbers involved, it’s possible, even likely, that some among the ranks of volunteers quit or lost jobs because of their service.

On an unusually warm day in October, my youngest son played his last basketball game of the season. We arrived a few minutes late, and as we approached the school where he plays, a woman approached behind us carrying a large number of items awkwardly perched in her cradled arms. I pulled the door open and stepped aside to let her in, quickly following her to open the second door.

“Thank you,” she said. “I definitely couldn’t have done that today.”

Of course, if I hadn’t been there, she would have figured it out. People have a remarkable ability to conjure solutions to problems on the spot. I’ve been in her situation before, and have carefully used my foot to hook the door handle and fling it open. She also had the option of setting her load down, opening the door, then holding the door with her body as she collected her water bottles, blankets, and purse.

The service I rendered is less remarkable than the service rendered by those 600,000 people who served the victims of Katrina. It’s the apparent disparity in the luster and publicity of the service that often causes us to lose sight of the fact that opportunities to serve others abound every day.

I didn’t save that woman’s life by opening the door for her but I did make her life a little bit easier for a brief moment. Service, after all, is simply an act of helpful activity.

Mahatma Gandhi’s quote, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others” is probably the most quoted statement on service ever spoken. I also like this statement from Charles Gill, “There are many wonderful things that will never be done if you don’t do them.” And, for those who believe in God, the words, “When ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God”¹ will likely resonate.

The reality is that service isn’t hard. What can be hard, at times, is recognizing when we’re actually serving someone else. We look at service given during terrible disasters and lose sight of the fact that service opportunities exist everywhere. We serve coworkers when we go out of our way to compliment them. We serve family members when we pick up a dish that they left on the counter. We serve neighbors when we say hello to them on the street or stop to talk to them in the grocery store. We even serve others when we choose not to engage in conflict even when their opinion differs from ours.

In the past, I’ve engaged in meaningful reflection on my day which included two important questions:

• What is one way that someone served me today?
• What is one way I served someone else today?

In my reflection, I would take a minute or less to write down the answers to those two questions. I was often surprised by the thoughts that came to mind.

One notable example occurred a few years ago when I was on an early morning run with a friend. We were talking about things of great importance to us. Something my friend said pulled a core memory from deep in my mind that struck a surprisingly tender chord. Turns out, running hard and crying harder don’t go well together. I ugly-cried in front of my friend; something that few people have witnessed. I was momentarily embarrassed for myself until I remembered how much my friend loved me. Embarrassment fled faster than we had been running, as we paused on that dark stretch of road.

That experience became a new core memory for me. I’ve reflected back on and written about that moment many times.

My friend had no idea that his comment would stir so profound a response from me. After that, he didn’t have to say anything. His presence alone was a simple, yet remarkable, act of service.

If you’re struggling to recognize the service you give for what it is, I invite you to take on the two-question challenge and ask yourself every day, “what is one way that someone served me today” and “what is one way I served someone sle today.” I think you’ll be surprised just how often you’re touched by the small and simple things of everyday life.

¹ The original text for this quote can be found here.