On Ladders and the inhabitants of my cubicle

“Let them know my work, let everyone look to me for direction…one way leads to wealth and fame, the other to the end of the way…” – the Buddha

“If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster” – Stephen R. Covey

About 16 months ago, I left a position at work that I loved to work in another department.  The motivation then was largely driven by an idea that I had subscribed to that one must keep moving up the ladder, take all opportunities available, make more money, get more recognition, etc.

A cost of this decision, was an ever  increasing difficulty in maintaining work/life balance. I was stressed and distracted (and as a consequence, not fun to be with). Travel was unpredictable, yet constant. I stopped playing with the toys in my cube. I became a compulsive Blackberry checker.

Eventually, it became clear, that enough was enough.  I had “dropped” by Blackberry in the toilet, but that wasn’t doing it .  I had to get out of there. For about 6 months, I plotted my exit, and now I am pleased to announce that next week I will be returning to the place in my company in which I was happiest.

In preparation for that transition, today I moved to my new cubicle. I still have another week at the old job, and then fittingly, I start my new one officially on Independence Day (the first day of the first pay period in July).

Until then, my Blackberry is off.

On paying attention to the wrong thing

“Do not live in the world, in distraction and false dreams…” – The Buddha

I take pride in noticing little details. Like, I’ll be crossing a railroad track and notice it stamped on the side with Carnegie Steel 1943. I will imagine the journey that piece of steel took from mine to smelting operation to the gandy dancer hammering in the spikes to hold it in place.  I can tell you on what day the plastic dinosaur  in our neighbor’s yard started pointing a different direction (Monday), and make up a story about the circumstances under which it first ended up in the yard and then how it came to change position. I can tell you what is different today with the house that is under construction that we pass every day while walking the dogs and think about what it must be like to have a job where you work with your own hands and at the end of the day you can actually see what you have accomplished. What I can’t tell you, at times, is what the heck Tristan or Maebe just ate while I was pondering the steel or the dinousaur or the house. Hopefully it was just grass.

On Flirting with Dirt

“Let go of winning and losing and find joy.”

Last weekend I competed in the Flirt with Dirt 5K.  I was one of about 200 competitors that Saturday morning. Another 400 were there to run the 10K. 

I always get emotional at races, especially running races. To me, it’s a beautiful thing to see people all assembled, and to think of all of the different paths they’ve taken to make it to the point where they’re racing.  Personally, I use races to see what I can do when I give it my all and what I should work on with my training. As I walked around prior to the race, I met people who had never run a race. I overheard a Father tell his daughter about how all that mattered was that she did her best. I saw old people and young people. Thin people and those of generous proportions.  All about to run the same race, yet all about to run hundreds of different races.

Over the years, I have participated in many different races, but what made this one special was that the competitors, by and large, seemed to be in it for the joy of the sport.

That is not to say there weren’t serious athletes. In fact, there were some great performances. In particular, there was a woman who won the 5K (beating all of the 200+ 5k runners, regardless of gender) and then 15 minutes later, participated in the 10K and got second place.

What was different was the tone. Usually at a race you have the people who are in it to win (or think they can) crowing each other at the front, jockeying for the best position. At this race, participants were reluctant to step up to the line. Eventually a handful of people (all of who did end up finishing at the top) filtered through the crowd to the front.

On the trail, athletes were polite, alerting you if they were about to pass (and those being passed would move out of the way). Someone fell at one point and another competitor (these were both people near the front of the pack) stopped to ask if the person was ok.

The end of the race was perhaps most different. There weren’t medals, but shoes for the overall top finishers and coffee mugs for the age groupers and all of the children who ran, regardless of placement. It was all pretty low key, with people not really being into who won. It was more about people who enjoy running just hanging out.

Looking back, I can see how the title of the event was more than just good alliteration. It set the tone that we were not to take any of it too seriously, and we didn’t.

On Karma and Dead Raccoons

"Intention, monks, is karma, I say.  Having willed, one acts through body, speech and mind." - the Buddha

This morning, when I let the dogs out, there was more commotion than usual.  Immediately, they disappeared behind the shed. I figured they were chasing squirrels, which is typical, and harmless, as the squirrels are much faster (and dare I say smarter) than the dogs. Imagine my surprise, then, when seconds later a panicked Django barreled past with an adult raccoon hanging off his side. As I rushed towards the two of them, the raccoon released herself and retreated to the top of our fence. At that moment, I noticed Jade had a baby raccoon in his jaws and was alternately shaking it violently and driving it into the ground. Somehow, and it is all a blur to me, I got Jade to drop the raccoon and got all of the dogs back inside. When I came out, I had made it in time to see the baby draw it's last breath. Impermanence surrounds us.

I called my wife, still pretty freaked out by the whole ordeal, trying to figure out what to do next. She headed home immediately to assist. I then left a message for my boss that is probably one of the more unusual ones she has received: "I'm going to be a little late. The dogs got into a family of raccoons and now I have a bit dog (it turns out this was not true) and a dead raccoon on my hands."

As I waited for my wife to return home, I watched from inside the house as the mother raccoon came back for her baby and carried the lifeless body over the fence and into the underbrush.

When my wife came home, mother raccoon watched us from a tree as we examined the dogs for wounds. We found none. If you could have seen mother raccoon in that tree, you would know that they too feel loss.

For whatever reason, I find myself connected the woes of the local raccoon population.  A few weeks ago, I wrote about a dinner party in which the host bragged of bludgeoning one to death, for no real reason. This act, if  it indeed happened as described, was an example of how one accumulates bad karma. The actor in that story struck the animal with intent to harm, to kill, for no real reason (whether it is ever ok is the subject of intense debate and gives the dharmaspoon guy a headache to even think about. he worries it's a pretty slippery slope). 

 

In today's story my own actions set in course a chain of events resulting in the death of a baby raccoon.  The karmic difference between the two stories is that in the earlier story, there was intent with malice. In this story, there was no intent on my part and only the inborn predatory response on the dog's part.

Today I am thankful that the dogs seem to be uninjured, the baby passed quickly, and hopefully you now have a good example of the same outcome from two different karmic paths (would rather have just had a hard time coming up with a topic instead of being "given" this example).

Off to the vet for Rabies booster shots...

On Why BP's Stock Price May be Down in the Dumps

"…The fool in his mischief forgets, and he lights the fire in which one day he must burn." – the Buddha

Living with integrity means doing the right thing, especially when it is difficult.  When you cut one corner one time, it makes the next time so much easier, until eventually, the corner cutting is now your process. It might not be today, it might not be tomorrow, but one day, this all catches up with you. And when it does, you pay the consequences.   The mess that is going on in the Gulf Coast is an extreme example of this. And one of the things that enabled it is the apparent disregard for the connection between actions and consequences. 

On consequence is that this is what BP's share price looks like:

BP is baffled, just mystified :

Well, BP, maybe this is the reason:

None of us can escape the consequences of our actions. And sometimes we cannot escape the consequences of the actions of others.

Let's hope that there is a change in position and an acceptance of responsibility, and most importantly, action, to undo the damage done...

On Inaccurate Maps

Something that makes us human is our tendency to try to make the world less overwhelming by placing things into categories, with those things we know the least being placed in the biggest scariest buckets.

The first maps depicted known lands in relatively high detail while relegating the unknown/unexplored to large areas of empty space, sometimes occupied by sea monsters.  The map above, picked up on a trip last year to Texas reflects the attitude of many a person I met while there.

Where we are from often distorts our view of the world around us. I am from New Jersey, yet have never said "Joisee" in my life, nor have ever met anyone who pronounces it that way. Except people who are not from New Jersey who find out I'm from New Jersey and say, almost to a person, "Oh, you're from 'Joisee'."

Recently, Dharmaspoon Gal, Maebe, Django, Cadence and I took a road trip through "Miss Again", "Old High", "Canned Turkey", "Ten Seeds", All Hammy", Judgy", and finally to "Swamp Land. "

Being from the North, I confess that I had my own preconceived notions about who I may meet, how we may be treated and what we would encounter.  Think "Deliverance." I didn't want to squeal like a pig.

For some, the war between the states has never ended. In the South, you still see some signs of the Confederacy. Literally. Like giant rebel flags and monuments to various Confederate figures. It's not in your face, all the time, and when it is, it's out there. In the North, things are much more insidious. It's more a patronizing elitist attitude.

Largely I found the people I came across to be either just like the people from Miss Again, but with a Southern accent or maybe a little more outgoing. Not once did I hear banjo music and start to get freaked out. I learned some neat expressions, like "it's coming a flood" to mean it's pouring rain. In Swamp Land, I did have a guy get a little too interested in what we were ordering at the Chinese restaurant, but I think he was just being friendly.

I think that we all need to explore the terrain once in awhile to see how accurate our maps are and to update them if necessary.

On Two Joyces and the Elephant

"Safe!" - Jim Joyce, Umpire
"A man's errors are the portals of discovery." - James Joyce, Writer
"Do not carry with you your mistakes. Do not carry your cares." - The Buddha (in the Elephant verse of the Dhammapada)

The dharmaspoon guy has too short an attention span for baseball, but all he has heard about from his co-workers since Thursday has been talk of a bad call by the veteran umpire, Jim Joyce, at a Major League Baseball game between the Tigers and the Indians that resulted in the Tiger's pitcher, Armando Galarraga being "Robbed" of a perfect game (one in which not a single member of the opposing team was credited with a hit), which is pretty rare and kind of a big deal.


Following the game, the umpire was able to watch a video of the call and admitted it was a bad call, and apologized to Galarraga. Footage of the umpire in the aftermath of the game showed a humbled, sad man who showed remorse over the mistake. Scheduled to umpire the following day for the same two teams at the same stadium, he showed up to a mostly supportive crowd (although had to endure some booing). The pitcher came out and publicly shook Joyce's hand and patted him on the back. The game went on without a hitch.


For fans of baseball, no doubt it would have been a beautiful thing for the Tigers to have their first perfect game, but for people everywhere, what a great example has been set for how to conduct yourself after a mistake has been made. First, there's Joyce, who admitted he was wrong, apologized, and then showed up the next day and did the best job he could do. Next, there's Galarraga, who accomplished something great in the sport, yet will not be officially recognized for it, yet handled his disappointment with dignity and grace: in the immediate aftermath, he actually just smiled and then walked away. Finally, there are the majority of the fans, who recognized that Joyce represents our basic humanity, that despite our best efforts, we sometimes make mistakes.