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Thanksgiving 2013
November 28, 2013 2 Comments

Thanksgiving 2013

Thanksgiving is a favorite holiday. In some ways, it might be my favorite holiday. It’s a reminder, of course, to be thankful for things in life…but…I’m pretty good about doing that anyway. For me, it’s a reminder of the day, in 1999, when I decided, “I need to get in better shape or I’m going to die!”

Thanksgiving, 1999

I don’t know if I was at my heaviest that year, but I was not in good shape. Somewhere in the after-dinner walk, my heart took off racing. I was out of breath with not much distance into the walk, and I felt terrible. I was thirty years old and, at least for a moment, thought, “Great, I’m gonna die about a quarter mile into a trail with a belly full of food!”

I’ll never forget the look on my wife’s face. How could I do that to her?

I made the decision on that walk to take health more seriously.

I Am Not a Runner

I’ve never been one to run. I’ll run while playing tennis or other sports, but running and me…we are not friends.

About four years ago (around Thanksgiving, no less), after playing tennis for a couple hours, the friend I was with said, “How ’bout we go for a run?” I told him I didn’t run, and he reminded my I’d just been running for hours. He told me about how, in the Army, it was his job to train the people who failed their Physical Training test. He told me he could get me running.

He was right. Running several times a week became a thing in my life. I ran a 5K, never slowing to a walk once — even at a water station. Running became a thing I did. And then, somewhere along the way, I stopped. I still walked, and still occasionally played tennis, but as I bounced around between several jobs after a layoff a handful of years ago, I wasn’t as active.

Weight creeped back up. Not to any dangerous level like when I was thirty, but still…

I Am Still Not a Runner (But I’m Getting There Again)

Recently, my wife told me about a virtual 5K. (The LOTR Villains Virtual Challenge.)

“What’s that — the virtual part?”

“You sign up online and you can organize people in your area, or…you can just do it by yourself. It has to be done by November 30. The money benefits RESULTS, and we don’t even have to run it — we can walk. It seems like a cool thing.”

So we signed up for the 5K as a symbolic kickoff to getting back into better shape. Since it’s kind of fantasy related, we decided to hit some trails and hike. We did the 5K about a week and a half ago; we even ended up running a fair bit
. (A few photos from the day.) We had so much fun, when my wife said, “They also have a 10K,” I said, “I’m in!”

Thanksgiving, 2013

This morning we got up while it was still dark and went to the trail where, 14 years ago, I thought I was going to die. (A few photos, taken along the way.) It was in the upper 20s, with no wind — perfect weather for me (and unseasonably cool for Texas). There was no running like there was with the 5K, but we kicked off Thanksgiving this year by walking a 10K (and then some). It was perfect, a reminder that even though I’m not running regularly, it hasn’t totally slipped away.

We have our minds set on running a couple 5Ks in 2014, and I’m thankful that I’ll be ready for them. And who knows…maybe next Thanksgiving we’ll do the challenge again and actually run the 10K!

So…Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in the states! And for those who follow the stuff I do online, there’s this:

Filed Under: Inspiration Tagged: ,
The Benefits of Saying No
November 26, 2013 Leave a Comment

The Benefits of Saying No

In a recent post, I mentioned near the end that saying yes and taking chances on things can be great.

So can saying no.

Time Management Made Easy

So many people complain about not having time. Their days are filled with work, appointments, social media and TV to catch up on, and even — sometimes — doing something a bit out of the ordinary
.

Sleep deprivation is not uncommon as people rush to do all the things they feel they must do. The thing is, most of us really don’t have to do all the things we’ve convinced ourselves we must do.

The best way to claim time you feel has slipped away is to say no!

This is What I Mean

Recently, a couple people have asked me to take part in doing things with them. Things I enjoy doing: writing! But…I made a decision to spend the next year focused only on the content I create for myself. Outside of the writing I do for my day job, I will say no to anything that is not mine. By doing so, I’m not adding to the pile of stuff I’m comfortable doing and becoming stressed as I try to manage more than I should take on.

Maybe by the end of the year, something I say no to will be a big thing and I’ll kick myself for not jumping on at the start. (I think that’s why most people say yes to so many things: that hope of something bigger happening.) I’m turning away helping organize a conference and some writing to focus on my own stuff — exclusively — for a year.

I suspect that what I reap in 2014 while focusing on my own work will mean more to me than money and maybe a wider audience by saying yes to others and helping them with their projects.

Maybe It’s Different With You

Maybe saying no to projects isn’t a thing for you because you don’t jump into projects outside of work at all. But I bet saying no to things can still give you back some much needed time. Saying no to a TV show or two, or no to keeping up with Facebook or Candy Crush can go a long way to having time to actually relax. Not every moment of the day must be filled — saying no to the urge to never be alone with your thoughts is a huge step toward stress relief. Saying no to keeping your kids on the go every waking moment not only gives you time, but it gives them time early in life to appreciate time spent being quiet so they’re not as likely to be stressed as they get older.

If I asked you if you wanted even one or two hours totally to yourself each week, I bet you’d say yes…and the way to get there just might be by saying no…

Filed Under: Productivity Tagged:
The Benefit of Taking Chances
November 24, 2013 3 Comments

The Benefit of Taking Chances

Tomasz Stasiuk is a cool guy…the kind of person you’re glad to know.

I would have never known Tomasz if I didn’t say “Yes, we can do that…”

How I Met Tomasz

I met Tomasz three years ago at a tech conference. Well, let me back up…I met Tomasz three years ago at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.

Tomasz lives in Colorado and was coming in for OpenCamp Dallas 2010. I live in the area, and my wife and I were looking forward to the conference. I had the day off work because construction in the area was (still is) heavy, so we planned to head to the hotel early and check in before traffic picked up. We wanted to get settled and enjoy the evening before the conference officially started. But then we saw Tomasz’s message on Twitter, asking if anyone was willing to give him a ride to the hotel.

A Great Weekend

I won’t go into my stories about picking up hitchhikers; I don’t do that anymore, but I miss the feeling of meeting someone completely new out of nowhere. So I asked my wife if she minded changing plans and picking Tomasz up at rush hour
. A little searching online revealed that he [probably] wouldn’t arrive at the airport in a hockey mask with an ax and ask us to wait with him at the baggage carousel so he could retrieve a duffel bag full of severed heads.

So…worst case: we’d all have a quiet, maybe even awkward ride to the conference. We’d have still helped someone, and that’s always cool. Best case: we’d make a new friend.

I won’t bore you with details about meeting Tomasz or the conference…I’ll just say that changing our plans to pick him up was what I really expected: meeting a new person with similar interests and chatting about things we all loved. The ride to the conference was a blast, and times at the conference together were fun. We’ve stayed in touch — mostly through Google+ — and I’m confident I’ll see Tomasz again in person one day.

The Benefit of Saying Yes

It would have been so easy to ignore Tomasz’s Tweet about the ride to the conference or have said, “We’re too busy,” “We have other plans,” or, “How do we know you won’t attack us with a Garden Weasel?!” But it was even easier to say, “Sure, we pass the airport on the way and we will give you a ride to the conference.”

It was a nice weekend, full of great presentations and people. It was a break from busy times at work — a weekend spent with my wife geeking out on the technology we love. But looking back on that weekend, the best thing about it was saying yes to a complete stranger and leaving the conference with a new friend.

* * *

Another benefit of being friends with Tomasz? Getting to see cool photos of Colorado he takes, like the one used with this blog entry.

Filed Under: Life
The Power of a Song
November 20, 2013 1 Comment

The Power of a Song

I am not afraid to admit that Adam Ant’s “Goody Two Shoes” video was a thing to behold when I was in junior high school. That ending…I did not mind it at all! But it was another song by Adam and the Ants that really — actually — mattered: “Prince Charming.”

Prince Charming

In another time, pushed way down inside the person I once was…I’m not afraid to admit that this song saved my life — and probably the lives of those who picked on me in 7th and 8th grade. I would never even vaguely condone a school shooting, but I will say I understand why a lost kid would do such a thing at a time when a month feels like a lifetime, and it’s so hard to see that a handful of years do not equal an eternity
.

And so, Adam Ant’s “Prince Charming” spoke to me, mostly in three lines:

Ridicule is nothing to be scared of…

Don’t you ever lower yourself, forgetting all your standards…

Respect yourself, and all of those around you…

That first and last line in particular hit me like few things at that time in my life. Looking back, it seems like I was another person entirely, trapped in a time that only existed in a story.

Sure, the lyrics mattered to me, but I didn’t realize then what that character meant to so many people…

What Mattered

The end of the “Goody Two Shoes” video was like something come to life from the pages of the magazines I had tucked away under my bed. For others, Adam Ant was a character blurring the lines of everything sexual, an androgynous being with whom to identify. I discovered this music about the time I read The World According to Garp by John Irving — so the transsexual character of Roberta Muldoon didn’t bother me at all; in fact, Roberta will always be a favorite literary character, no matter how over-the-top Irving sold her.

Lines were blurred, and while I was definitely a heterosexual, I realized there were people who were not easy to classify at the time, but…who personified the same feelings of being on the outside looking in that I felt.

People (Are People)

I didn’t care what people “were,” as long as they were good people. When some friends came out as gay after high school…it made sense to me because we all clustered together out of strength in numbers, whether the thing we hid was that we’d been playing Dungeons and Dragons since 1978 or that we were gay all along. It hit me pretty early on: if I was friends with someone the day before I found out some secret about them, why would finding out a truth they hid for years change anything?

If you were my friend — we were friends!

I have one transgendered friend (that I know of). When I found out, nothing changed. It wasn’t a big thing to me because friendship comes from the heart. Gay, transgendered, or anyone else…treat me well, and I’ll do the same for you. Being a protective individual, I’ll even fight a little harder for those who get knocked by society than I will for myself.

Prince Charming

“Prince Charming” is a song I’ll always carry deep in my heart. As hokey as it may be, it’s a song that helped me love myself in a time when I felt nobody else did. But more than that, it ensured I later loved all my friends who were different in the eyes of so many people, but who were — and will always be — people I love as much as I was taught to love myself by an androgynous pirate in the 80s…

Filed Under: Music
You Wouldn’t Say That to a Doctor
November 3, 2013 Leave a Comment

You Wouldn’t Say That to a Doctor

I used to be one of those people who would never consider writing for free. I’ve even been that guy who’s said, “You’d never ask a doctor work for free!”

It’s not the best argument; in fact, it really only holds up in the sentiment of the statement, but it’s anything but a decent analogy
. Don’t believe me? When’s the last time you ever heard a doctor say:

I’ve been working on a heart transplant in my garage after work for a year — you should come by and check it out.

But I have heard plenty of professional writers say:

I’ve been working on a novel after work for a year in my spare time…

They are entirely different professions, and to compare them is weak. First: many doctors do [at least] some work for free. Second: Again, they are very different things, without strong parallels. Do you see aspiring doctors waiting for November so they can compete in NaKiTraMo (National Kidney Transplant Month)?

Didn’t think so…

This is Free Writing

I’m not getting paid to write this. Maybe I could, but I’m not a big fan of monetizing things and cranking out content. What you see here, at The Juggling Writer, and what you listen to at Men in Gorilla Suits is content that has never been created just to create content in the pursuit of ad revenue. There’s nothing wrong with that if it’s your thing, but I’ve written almost as many free words in recent years as I have words that paid the bills. Why? Because sometimes, I like to write whatever I want to write and put it out there.

Now, I do believe that if a publication is making advertising money that they should pay writers. (This is one of many reasons I’m a technical writer by trade; the times I’ve freelanced have been tough.) I laugh at places telling people that writing 50 blog entries about discount cologne in a week’s time is going to be great exposure for their career. But…I have known people who’ve written for The Huffington Post and continued doing so because the exposure works for them.

No One is Forcing You to Write for Free

I get the argument that those who write for very little or even free ruin it for the rest of those wanting to make a living as writers. But none of us are owed a living as a writer; more than that, no one is forcing you to write for free.

The blog mill asking for 25, 50, or even 100 entries at $1 an entry? Be honest: even if it paid more, it’s still not worth it to write what you don’t want to write, even for money. I know people making a comfortable living writing technical documents, non-fiction, and even novels. At some point in almost every instance (with maybe the exception of the tech writers), they’ve all written for free at some point along the way.

On Spec

I have a novella coming out this month — it was originally written for free in my spare time. The novel I’m currently shopping around was written for free, and I’m working on my next novel with no promise of pay. But…a couple days ago was pay day at my day job writing Help pages and user guides. For me, it’s a fair trade off that allows me to write exactly what I want to write in my spare time — even if I’m doing it for free.

The writers I know making a living writing exactly what they want to write, when faced with writing for little to no pay, took a chance on themselves. No one forced them to write for free — they worked days jobs that were not their dream jobs until free paid off for them. The best part? In the end, they didn’t have 6-figure student loans to pay off like those doctors you’ll never see spending November seeing how many kidneys they can transplant!

Filed Under: writing
The Legacy at the End of the Day
October 20, 2013 1 Comment

The Legacy at the End of the Day

I ended a recent blog entry with the following thought:

Sometimes we spend so much time thinking about the legacy we will leave behind when we’re dead and gone that we don’t think about what we’ll leave behind at the end of the day.

I’ve been thinking about legacy quite a bit this past week. In a week’s time, three people I’ve known died.

The Old Man at the Juggling Club

I met Kumar Pallana at the Dallas Jugglers’ Association in the late 80s. Because I always wanted to learn a bit of everything, I was drawn to the older guy who appeared one day at the club with plates. He taught me how to flip them around my body, how to time things just right to move them around tabletops while they flopped and wobbled their way around, and even how to spin them on sticks. This was the kind of thing I saw as a kid growing up, and there I was…thanks to this quiet man at the Dallas Jugglers’ Association, I was doing things I never imagined doing. Every week, I looked forward to seeing Kumar; it meant a lot to me that he liked the way I juggled.

Kumar died on October 10. It would be easy to say his legacy is being “that quirky guy in Wes Anderson movies,” or even in the variety acts he did earlier in his career. I’ll remember him as the kind man who taught me cool things at the Dallas juggling club, the guy who smiled while watching me juggle…the guy who said, “That’s really good,” while nodding to let you know when you got things right. Everyone who met Kumar talked about how kind he was.

He was all that, and so much more (the story of his life is pretty damn cool). That’s what makes up a legacy.

The Rituals of Kumar Pallana from Dark Rye on Vimeo.

B…

I sat next to B at the first office job I had where I wasn’t on the phone. He was quiet — even standoffish to many. We chatted in the mornings; I found out things about him and built on that. Sometimes he’d try talking sports with me, but I don’t really follow sports, so I’d nod and listen.

One Tuesday morning, he said, “A plane just hit the World Trade Center.”

We figured it had to be a small plane and no terribly big deal, but still — the two of us got up and went to the break room to check out what was up on television. Obviously, it was much more than a small plane that hit the North Tower.

When the second plane hit, B said, “I do believe we’re under attack…”

On October 15, B went into his garage, sat in his car, put a shotgun in his mouth, and pulled the trigger. In a Facebook post left before doing what he did, he made it clear to all that the legacy [to some] he left behind that day was 30+ years in the making…

William

On October 11, my brother-in-law William sat in his car and shot himself dead. Two suicides in less than a week.

Not long after reading the news about Kumar dying, we got the call that William was dead.

He also left behind a legacy…

The Legacy at the End of the Day

Some of us live 94 years of adventure before collapsing on the way to a bridge game, leaving a life of travel and a certain degree of fame behind
. The story of Kumar Pallana’s life is worth repeating, but it was in Kumar’s daily routines — routines not too much different than we all do — where much of his legacy lies. It was in routine things that Kumar found a foundation that allowed him to do cool things that he would share with anyone willing to join in the routine.

It would be a shame to see B’s and William’s legacies defined by their final actions at the end of their days…the end of their lives. Many people see suicide as an act of weakness, but there takes a certain strength to go on — at least in B’s case — for over 30 years when something in your head repeatedly tells you, “Stop!”

I don’t know how long William found strength to go on, but the decision to end one’s own life is rarely a sudden thing.

Everyday Strength

It’s easy to look at everyday life and want something more: adventure instead of traffic; an exciting dream job instead of sitting in a cubicle or standing all day in a warehouse or factory. From a young age, many of us are told we can be anything we want to be when we grow up, and that’s not always true. The likelihood of me writing fiction full time is slim; a majority of kids playing sports and dreaming of the day they play professionally will never see that dream come true.

So there takes, for many, a certain everyday strength to go on. Some, like Kumar, find cool things along the way and make it their lives. But most people, as much as we like to believe all dreams come true as long as we put in the effort, never see those big dreams realized.

Every Day, Strength

I’ve juggled for over 32 years at the time of writing this. At the time of writing this, I have lived over 44 years. I first thought about ending my own life when I was 6. I last thought of it shortly before my 40th birthday. I am not Kumar or B or William, but I know a thing or two about the routine that allows one to juggle well. I know a thing or two about the routine of waking up and moving forward even when you don’t want to.

There is no shame in any of the legacies the three men I’ve written about have left behind. I’m sure if present and asked, all three men would say the best thing they left behind were their children.

Every day, until the end, there was a certain strength that carried them all through — until the day came where they left so much behind. I don’t know what my legacy will be when I’m gone, but I know that so much of it will come from what I do with everyday things…

Filed Under: Life
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