WIDOMSV 6: I Tried to Write a Song

I love music. Music forms a central part of my life. More than just the soundtrack to my life or a protective blanket to block out the noises and silences of the world, music is the rhythm that my life ebbs and flows to.

That said, I am at best a mediocre musician and lousy songwriter.

When I was in high school, I had a notebook filled with poems, song ideas, and stories as I am sure most teenagers do. Most of them are awful (yes, that verb tense would imply that this notebook still exists) and not worth the cost of the paper they were written on.

There was one notebook, though, that had some really good stuff in it. That was my REAL notebook. And I wrote a lot of very good material in there, including some really good songs. One problem: I lost it. I lost it at a very vulnerable point in my life in a very public setting. I lost it in a way that led me to believe that someone may have taken it. That notebook was too personal for that type of loss and I vowed never to put something that personal together again.

Principles of Accountability

Accountability forms one of the core pillars on which I have built my life.  To that end, it weighs on me that I have not been accountable to this blog for my last year’s resolutions.  And I have not been accountable for announcing this year’s resolutions.

Today I plan to rectify that. In April, I know – but more on that later as well.

In case you are new to this blog, last year I put up a post shortly after the new year where I outlined my goals for 2018.  They were:

1. Publish at least 20 blog posts
2. Stop being a passive observer at work
3. Take my wife’s breath away at least three times this year

Relatively lofty goals to set myself up for.  So, how did I do?

Rules for Living Life, Part 9

When I started this series, I had no idea where it would end up. In many ways, this series has been an experiment in the rules themselves. I hope you have enjoyed reading this glimpse into my ethos as well as the playbook that I use to implement my life-plan.

The tenet of my secular Solution Matrix that I wanted to carry across to these Rules for Living Life (Lessons of Jesus) is the concept of honesty. But where this concept is buried in three or four different parts of the matrix, honesty takes up full residence as its very own rule here.  Rule 9: Always be honest. Be honest with others, even if it hurts. Be kind, but be honest and speak truth always.

If this is the first post in this series that you are reading, this is my final post in a series of blogs based on a set of rules for living my life that I developed by merging a set of secular rules together with my understanding of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. If you want to read the previous nine blogs in this series, you can start at the beginning of this series here.

Since this post is about honesty, I should admit that while I think this is one of the best-written rules, this is absolutely the worst explanatory statement. I actually think this is the one case where the explanatory statement WEAKENS the Rule. In trying to find a way to expound on “always be honest” I unnecessarily ended up just arguing against attempts to find wiggle room in the rule and made it sound like the whole thing was about expressing yourself.

If you have made it this far in the rules and are starting from a place of agape love, then that statement really seems ridiculous.

Probably the one redeeming a part of the explanatory statement is the very end: speak truth always. Maybe I should change the entire explanatory statement to that.

There is no greater foundation to establish yourself and your reputation on than honesty. When you look at people worthy of emulation, are they dishonest? Do they change facts and skew circumstances to their own benefit? Do they manipulate the system for their own gain? If you are still reading this blog then I highly doubt it.

Honesty is not easy. And make no mistake: I am not talking about the “radical honesty” that was briefly popular in the early 2000’s. That sort of honesty is the root of my poor explanatory statement. This honesty is not about providing your unfiltered opinion, it is the core value of your life. It is an ethos echoed by the Honor Code I was bound by as a midshipman at the United States Merchant Marine Academy:

A midshipman will not lie, cheat, or steal.

This seems like a simple statement but in practice it challenges you because there is no “except when…” attached to it. The Honor Code is a simple truth designed to lead a midshipman to honesty: the cornerstone of honor.

This type of honesty is the foundation of a moral code that you judge yourself against. It creates your character and serves as the filter for your actions. It also opens your eyes up to the moral code of others and highlights who in your life are people of character, and who is not.

This rule is perfectly in line with all of the teachings about who Jesus of Nazareth was. In many ways, he was one of the first teachers who emphasized seeking and speaking the truth regardless of the consequence. Whether or not you believe that He was the Son of God, as he radically taught, He believed in who He was. And His teaching of this truth ultimately led to his crucifixion.  

When you start to lead a life built on honesty, it can be intimidating.  Will people still respect you? What if you make a mistake? What if you hurt someone’s feelings? What if you are admitting weakness? The funny thing about honesty, though, is that gets easier as you do it. 

People respond to you on such a different level when you are honest with them. They respect you more for your honesty and they start to really listen to what you say. They learn to trust you and speak honestly back to you. And that is when you open up to real relationships.  You have the ability to choose honesty and when you make that free choice, those around you will instinctively respond.

Which brings me simply to the final rule, Rule 10: Don’t get in God’s way. Know you are a part of God’s plan. If you let Him write your story it will end perfectly.

There is no better way to end this series than to remember that we all have free will. We have the free will to choose whether or not we will start with agape love. The free will to be honest, humble, and fearless. The free will to ask others for advice and to teach others what we have learned ourselves.  The free will to pray and to ask for what we want. And the free will to accept what we get or to always want more.

Free will makes all the difference.  We get to choose the women and men that we will be. For me, I choose to follow ten simple rules and I hope that those ten rules prevent me from missing the plan that has been laid out for my life. I have faith that a plan exists. I do not believe we are all bouncing around randomly, coexisting for no defined purpose. Nothing in my experience supports that conclusion.

I do believe that we are all walking through a darkened city at night with a penlight. None of us see more than a small piece of the landscape. But I also have faith that if we picked up our penlights together and started following God’s plan, the city would look a whole lot brighter.

Thank you for taking this journey with me. Let me know if any of these rules have resonated with you – I would love to hear what you think.

 

Rules for Living Life, Part 8

I recently had the opportunity to spend a few days studying the Battle of Gettysburg by walking around the battlefield with a military historian. The leadership training course I was taking centered on key individuals in the campaign and how their actions (or inactions) should guide me as a leader in my own organization.

Throughout the battle, leaders on both sides displayed a number of exemplary traits and we carefully examined the leadership trait they each personified.  As I step back to try and understand the entire battle, though, one overriding factor seemed to tie everything together. Serendipitously, it is my eighth Rule for Living Life: Be fearless and believe in your mission. David didn’t kill Goliath – his faith did.

If this is the first post in this series that you are reading, this is a series of blogs based on a set of rules for living my life that I developed by merging a set of secular rules together with my understanding of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. If you want to start at the beginning of this series, you can start here.

Without getting into the historical specifics, the concept of “mission” and the causal relationship between whether the mission was communicated and unquestioningly accepted and the leader’s success in the battle was tangible. For Robert E. Lee, the mission was to annihilate the Union Army: a mission that many of his staff could not support because their strategy in the War for Southern Independence was to defend their soil, drive the Northern Army from the Southern states, and secure a separated peace.  For General Meade, the mission was to defend his country from invasion, preserve the Union, and emancipate the southern slaves. His army supported him completely.

When pushed beyond physical and mental limits, it was their belief in the mission that gave the Union Army strength and resolve. Conversely, the lack of mission clarity and belief caused the Confederates to hesitate and stall. Their hesitation drove the desperation that ultimately resulted in defeat.

Examples of this causality are also evident in the lives of many other highly impactful people. When a person devotes themselves to a mission they believe in completely, the results they can achieve are awe-inspiring. Conversely, if you are dispassionate about something, it seems like the barriers expand exponentially and the energy reserves you have are never enough. Right?

But how do you know what your mission is?

I think the answer to that question is in the rule itself: be fearless. I believe that in each of our hearts we all have something we would do if truly fearless – something you would do if all obstacles were removed.

For me, that deep-seated desire is to be a writer.

In this series, we have discussed a few seminal moments in my life. One of the earliest was a radio commercial I heard when I was 13. In the commercial, a boy arrives at the gates of heaven after wrecking his car (it was a safe-driving public service message). The angel greets him and begins reassigning key aspects of his life to others due to his premature death.

“Okay, let’s see. Oh! You were going to be a famous author – you don’t see that one very often…” the angel says.

For some reason that resonated with me. And it still resonates with me.

Of course, as an engineer, I did nothing to learn how to become a famous author. I did not follow my path and I have never been fearless in pursuing that mission. But that voice has never left my head and that resonance has never left my heart.

Rule 8, like many of the other rules, relies on faith. The difference here is that the faith you have to have is faith in yourself.

Here again, the key is in the explanatory statement: David didn’t kill Goliath – his faith did. What this statement is intended to convey is the duality that you must have enough faith to step out of ranks to take on your mission and that you have the tools needed to face the challenge. It also subtly reminds me that failing to devote myself to a providential circumstance causes that opportunity to pass me by.

Tying this back to Rule 7, though, there is a dangerous corollary: just because you step up to face your mission, your idea of success is not guaranteed. Nowhere could provide a greater metaphor for this than the National Cemetery at Gettysburg. No one could articulate this better than Lincoln did when he gave his Gettysburg Address.

“It is rather for us to be here and take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom…”

Thousands of men confronted their Goliath on that battlefield and though they were not individually successful at staying alive, the campaign to end slavery progressed. And that was undoubtedly part of God’s plan. And today, their ghosts inspire new generations of leaders. That is immortality and maybe that was God’s plan, too.

Finally, there is a poster that always stuck with me. It is in the style of those inspirational posters but this one is a parody. On the poster is the image of a shipwreck with the saying: Mistakes; It could be that the meaning of your life is only to serve as a warning to others.

That resonates with me as well. We do not get to choose our outcome but we do get to choose whether or not we participate.  

And remember: we’re all walking through a darkened city at night with a penlight. None of us are seeing more than a small piece of the landscape…

Rules for Living Life, A Secular Interlude

The challenge of writing a blog lies in balancing the hubris to think you should put your opinions out there and the humility to write what an audience will read, not simply what you want to say.

I suppose that is not completely true – I could simply continue to write what I feel like writing since this is not a source of income, but there is an inescapable reality that as I write from a more spiritual place rather than a secular place, the page-views and comments I receive dwindle.  

Not that I am writing this for validation, but those metrics are a mechanism to remain self-aware of what I am writing relative to what this audience would like to read.

While I remain committed to completing this series of blogs by outlining all ten of my Rules for Living Life, I do think it is time to take a quick break from the more spiritual side of the rules and let you know how these rules started.  

In case this is the first blog of this series you are reading, this post is part of a series of blogs discussing a set of rules I have I put together for living my life based on merging a set of business rules with my understanding of the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth.  If you missed the previous five blogs, you can start at the beginning of this series here.

As I mentioned in previous posts, these rules originated during a particularly frustrating work meeting that I was obligated to attend. Though the topic of the meeting has been lost to history, the feelings I had at the time are still strong: the meeting was about fixing problems, but there was no fix being generated. It was another out-of-control spiral of blame, deflection, recrimination, self-promotion, and inaction. Those with the answers sat quietly, fearing blame for the cause, while those most impacted flailed around to find someone to help them. And the loudest voices gave the least guidance.

Maybe you have been in meetings like that.

I had a few subordinates at the time, and I resolved that I needed to help them understand this was not how a business worked.  I wanted to find a solution to our internal culture and the ways that it impeded our growth. I opened up a new page of notes on my iPad and pecked out a title:

Solution Matrix

Invigorated, I quickly came up with a list of ten items that I felt would make up my “Solution Matrix”.

1. Be enthusiastic: Enthusiasm is contagious, so is despair.
2. Get your hands dirty: Fix problems, don’t find problems.
3. Build someone up: Assign credit, not blame.
4. Be accountable: Accountability is a key indicator of performance.
5. Communicate effectively: Communication is a drug, when used properly it can improve anything, but it is dangerous when it is abused.
6. Give immediate feedback: Timely feedback is gold, history is just a story.
7. Lead: Leaders must lead.
8. Help the team succeed: Personal success is the fastest way to cause a team to fail.
9. Focus: Focus on the objective and don’t be distracted by the obstacles.
10. Know your objective:  You will never achieve what you don’t set as a goal.

I played with the explanations, I tweaked the rules a little bit over the years. But every time that I did, I always put them back the way they were.  

At their heart, they are a good set of guidelines for conducting yourself in the business world, but I have trouble applying them outside of the office. In a way, I think that stems from how they originated. They were built to solve problems at work, and so they are focused on doing that. And two of them focus on focusing on what you are doing.  Funny how that worked…

But did they work? Candidly, I had very mixed results. I have coworkers who read this blog that can feel free to comment on their effectiveness, but I would say I have been fundamentally ineffective at changing the culture at my workplace.

It was this failure to effectively influence our culture that sent me back to the drawing board to reconsider the entire concept of the matrix. It was this failure that made me realize I was not gifted with all of the answers to the world’s problems, so I had better seek out someone with a better track record. Someone who did such a good job giving guidance on how to live, he literally became a definition of time.

So I went to my Bible and I read. And I went to the bookstore and I read. And I went to histories and I read. And I thought. And I prayed. And I prayed more. And after all that, I think I came up with a better list.  

But I will leave that for you to decide.

Thanks for reading and remember: we’re all walking through a darkened city at night with a penlight. None of us are seeing more than a small piece of the landscape…

Rules for Living Life, Part 5

When I shifted my secular Solution Matrix over to the Rules for Living Life (Lessons of Jesus) there were two themes that I wanted to carry through: leading through action and pushing beyond my comfort zone. These concepts were two strong foundations that I used to anchor the original Solution Matrix and I know they are also key to writing rules that are challenging, not simply reminders of how good I was doing.

While both concepts are very important, the first one is the foundation for the next of my Rules for Living Life: Rule #5: Lead from your knees.  Nothing is beneath doing, no task is too small. Work – don’t watch.

In case this is the first blog of this series you are reading, this is a series of blogs based on some rules I put together for living my life created by merging set of business rules with my understanding of the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth.  If you missed the previous four blogs, you can start at the beginning of this series here.

Each rule starts as a narrative rule and then is accompanied by an explanatory statement, to flesh it out a little.  While this rule may be the least straightforward (Lead from your knees), the explanatory statement helps to bring it into a much clearer focus: “Nothing is beneath doing, no task is too small. Work – don’t watch.”

Knowing that the genesis of my secular rules was a workplace meeting, it probably comes as no surprise that there is a rule about acting rather than observing. If that is a surprise, then please let me know where you work – and if you are hiring. But I digress…

Leadership is always about doing. Whether that doing is accomplished through direct action, empowerment, delegation, or, unfortunately, through inaction, a leader always expresses their intent and vision through their actions. As a leader, you cannot expect your team will do as you say, they always follow what you do. This concept extends beyond traditional leadership roles, too. Whether you are a parent, manager, CEO, a taxi driver, or an accountant working in the social vacuum of a cubicle, your world will react to you in response to your actions, not your words.  And especially not your intentions.

Ever wonder why everyone seems to take shortcuts with you? Do you take shortcuts with others?

Ever wonder why no one lets you into the line of traffic? Do you let someone else in?

Are you having trouble forming relationships in your life? Do you use your time to reach out and create relationships with others?

These rules are not just about working or getting ahead in business, they are about living your life. This rule is not about being a leader at work or getting the next promotion, it is about leading your own life towards the place that you want to be in.

But why did I chose to phrase my rule in such an obtuse way: Lead from your knees? Simple: one of the most powerful acts that Jesus performed during his public life was taking the time to wash the feet of his friends just before their last meal together. This was an act normally left for servants but he took the posture of a servant, got down on his knees, and washed each of their feet.

It was a simple act, but it was profound because he set the expectation for each of them: whatever you think I am, I am not too big to serve you. Their feet needed cleaning and he was just the guy to do it.

As you go through life, look for things that need doing. Then look at those things with a heart guided by agape love and see how doing them will affect those around you. Be humble and get started. If you do not know how to do the job, ask for advice.  If someone seems lost trying to help you do it, teach them how to do it themselves. When you use the rules holistically, you see how this works. Whether you are launching a new company, adopting an orphan, fostering a dog, or even just simply picking up a plastic water bottle on the side of a trail, what you are really doing is making the world a better place. And that makes your world a better place.

Maybe you also noticed that this rule fails to put you in charge of anything. This is leadership through action, not leadership by position. This rule sets an expectation for you to take ownership of yourself and your surroundings. Leadership is not bossing people around.  Leadership is standing in the front and showing the better way.  That is what I wanted to capture with this rule.

Thanks for reading and I’d love to hear what you think about all this. Leave your comments and let’s start a discussion.  

And always remember: we’re all walking through a darkened city at night with a penlight. None of us are seeing more than a small piece of the landscape…

Rules for Living Life – Rule 1

I know what you are thinking: Mark, you forgot to tell us the Rules!

No, I did not forget them, I intentionally neglected to put all ten Rules in the first post.  If I did that, you could have just read them, decided that you knew enough about them already (or that I was truly as loony as you thought I was) and saved yourself the trouble of reading the subsequent posts.

Hopefully, by parsing them out I can inspire you to spend a little time thinking about each one and what it really means.

Each of the ten entries on my list comes as both a Rule and a saying, or a little guidance note. I did this for myself because when I look over the Rules I have a tendency to try and weasel out of them by simply reading the words and not spending time focusing on what they mean.  The guidance notes help me remember what I was intending when I wrote the Rule.

Probably the best example of this is Rule #1: Start with Love:  There is nothing more important than unconditional love for everyone.

Now the rule-part seems very straightforward: start with love. Sure, that is simple.  But the devil is in the details of the explanatory statement: there is nothing more important than unconditional love for everyone.  That is anything but straightforward.

But first, what do I mean by love?

In my opinion, the English language lacks proper words to describe love. We have just that one simple word to describe the way we feel for our mothers, what we can make with our partners, or how we enjoy a hamburger.  We use “love” to describe our feelings towards inanimate objects, animals, spouses, ice cream, sports teams, friends, and maybe on occasion, this blog.

I like the way Greek has four different words for love: eros for passionate love and physical attraction, philia for the love of a friend or an equal, storge for love between family members, especially parents and children, and agape for charity or empathetic love.  They also do not seem to denigrate the word by applying it to non-relational, inanimate objects.  So, you have to love that!

Both the Rule and the explanatory saying talk about agape love, or the empathetic, putting others first, wanting-the-well-being-of-others-over-your-own kind of love.  When talking about the love that Jesus espoused, Thomas Aquinas described it as “to will the good of another.”

I mean this type of love because these are Jesus’ primary teachings: love your neighbor as yourself and love your enemies, not just your friends.  I cannot presume to say I am following the example of someone if I do not put their central teaching as a core value.  It is therefore critically important to start with this kind of love because it sets the foundation for the Rules. If you fail to start with love, then the rest of the Rules come apart.

There is another critical word in the saying: unconditional. This rule applies whether or not the person you are interacting with is applying the Rule towards you. This rule applies whether or not the person you are interacting with has hurt or wronged you in the past. This is the hardest part of the Rule, but it is also the key to understanding it.

Now, before you get too concerned, there is also a key word intentionally missing from the Rule: like. Just because you show agape love towards someone, that does not mean you have to like them.

Parents can understand this concept when they consider their complex feelings towards a deliberately being obstinate or willful child (just eat your peas!!). You certainly are challenged to like their behavior but, at the same time, neither your love for that child nor the reality that you have their best interest in your heart has changed. In fact, disciplining a child is actually an act of love very much in line with this rule if it is done from a place of charity and empathy, even if they do not necessarily see things that way.

There is one last caveat: the Rule does not say you have to accept someone’s abuse, neglect, injury, or bullying. The Rule does not guarantee that others will follow it. The Rule simply states that you must act towards everyone with a heart filled with agape love and charity. Agape love does not remove accountability for the actions of someone else.  Agape love should compel you to confront those that hurt you in a way that is filled with compassion and empathy for them.  But if that fails, you may have to remove them from your life.

Removing yourself from abuse is critical, getting even is not.  You should always remove people from your life from a place of love and charity, not by punching them in the face, throwing their belongings on the front lawn, or storming into their office and angrily delivering them your resignation. Make no mistake: sometimes turning someone over to authorities for what they have done is an act of love and charity, both for the accused and for those who will encounter them in the future. But you must do it from a place of love and charity, not a place of revenge.

Rule #1 is not intuitive but I strongly believe the world works better when it is the foundation for our interactions. When people place the needs of others ahead of their own, better things happen.  What would be better: you, working for yourself, competing against the thousands of people in your life, or the thousands of people in your life all working together for you? Of course, it would be better if everyone worked towards YOUR best interest, but the mystery here is that it only works if you are working in their best interest as well.

So the less straightforward part of this Rule is that it is an act of faith.  You have to start working for everyone else and then have the trust, or more importantly the faith that they will eventually start working for you as well.  And if they fail to do that, you have to live with the consequences.

But what consequences are there, really?  So you are not the first one in a line, you simply finish a little later. So you let a car merge in front of you, how much later are you? So you skip buying a new pair of shoes and give a waitress a tip that helps pay her rent.  Odds are, you already have a lot of shoes. So you visit someone at the hospital, you can watch that show on Netflix tomorrow.

And now, for the real trick: when you start doing this, you may start to realize that it is your drive to be ahead of everyone that puts most of the stress in your life. When you start to put others first, that stress magically dissipates.

There is an incredible freedom that comes from giving up trying to get ahead of everyone else.

This is a hard concept, particularly hard for us Americans because we have an innate desire for individual success.  Our country was founded on the principles of individual freedoms and achieving our maximum potential. But look at your life: are you winning? Find areas where you strive to put yourself first: are these areas that increase stress or release stress? As a small experiment, take a week and put others first in those areas and see if that brings more or less freedom.  See what that does to your stress.

When you have had a chance to try this, post your stories below to let others know how putting someone else first is really about being your best, happiest self.

Thanks for reading and remember: we’re all walking through a darkened city at night with a penlight. None of us are seeing more than a small piece of the landscape…

What Did You Expect??

You have heard it said that money is the root of all evil. I get the sentiment but I’m not sure that money is the root of any of the evil that I contemplate. I think it is time to look at this particular expression a little more closely.

I mean what did you really expect: the saying would be right? The saying would be practical? The saying would provide guidance to avoid life’s pitfalls? All sayings essentially are pithy lessons designed to give us a moral compass to guide our actions. If the saying is good, and we follow it, it should improve our life. That is where this one starts to break down for me.

As a proof, we can to look at this saying as a logic problem (Money = Basis for Evil). Based on this, we must assume that if you have lots of money, you must be evil.

Hmm. Okay, maybe that is the wrong way to approach this.

Since I disagree with the saying, I can disprove the logical causality if I prove the converse of the equation. In other words, if I can prove that evil is done by people without money, and not seeking money, then I have proven that money is NOT the root of ALL evil. I think that is a pretty short putt – certainly a shorter putt than trying to prove that Bill Gates is not evil.

So having cleverly disproved the logical relationship of the saying, I now propose a slight modification to fit my experience of our world:

Expectation is the root of all evil.

Ooooh, let that resonate in your head for a minute. How much of the evil in our lives, in our world, in our community and in our own minds is really the result of our own expectations not being met. And we live in a world where our expectations are constantly being bombarded by the delicious realities of EVERYONE ELSE’s expectations being met, right?

And doesn’t that make want you to do evil?

When you are flying down the highway traveling above the legal speed limit, how frustrated and angry do you get when some left-lane bandit refuses to yield? Just because they are doing seventy in a fifty-five mile per hour zone, that does NOT give them the right to prevent you from doing seventy-five! Because you expect you should be able to.

When you order a steak at a restaurant and order it medium rare and it comes out a light shade of medium pink because the other members of your party ordered theirs well done, you get angry because your stake was not prepared properly! Because you expect it to be prepared as you ordered it.

When your team gets to the Superbowl and faces an obviously inferior team from a weak division starting their backup quarterback, you get emotionally hurt when they lose. Because everyone expected them to win. (Sorry, Pats fans, I couldn’t resist…)

There are a thousand examples and they all stem from the same thing. We set our expectation for a desired outcome and when the expectation is not met, we feel personally affronted. That makes us mad, and when we get mad, we want to get even.

What can you do about it? Stop expecting everything to work according to your perfect plan!

If you really look back over the fabric of your life, was it the times when the plans came together perfectly that were the most memorable? I sincerely doubt it. I would guess that like me, it was those times when the outcomes were far from my expectations that the most memorable and beautiful things happened.

I need to stop here and remind myself that this is the source of 100% of my anger, frustration, and stress. If I could just pull back and enjoy the ride, not worrying about managing outcomes and everyone else’s experiences, I would be a much happier person. And yes, today I am back on one of those planes, wrestling with the Internet. But now I am happier because I stopped fighting.

And just for the record:

• Those of you authors who expected me not to use conjunctions – I’m sorry.
• Those of you that expected consistent Oxford commas – Oops.
• Those of you who expected me to use the right “steak” – Fail.
• Those of you who expected me not to end in a preposition – Did that.
• Those of you who expected me to use complete sentences – Oh well.

Did those mistakes irritate you as you were reading? I guess I am glad that you expected this to be another great post, but really, why did you expect anything in the first place?

Why Does Technology Suck?

Watching TED Talks is a personal vice.  YouTube feeds me a constant stream based on my browsing habits and click-bait weaknesses.  During my lunch hour I often open one and eat while listening to ‘experts’ espousing the latest ideas worth spreading.

Recently there has been a spate of talks based on the evils of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and how we humans will survive in a machine-dominated, dystopian future.

I like these talks, the same way I like Fox News, but am not worried.  Or rather, I am worried, but not worried about the impending crash of civilization.

Why?  Well, currently I am sitting on a United Airlines flight from London to Washington, D.C.  While that may seem irrelevant, I would like to review my flight so far:

1. We were held on the ground for forty minutes because it was windy and the computers controlling the landing and takeoffs of the airplanes increased the separation scheme.  Over sixty minutes later, we finally took off.
2. I purchased Internet access for $24.95 and tried to open a Google Sheet.  When I make a change to that sheet sometimes it changes, sometimes it does not.  Sometimes it just causes my computer to ponder the change.
3. During the ENTIRE the time I have been writing this, I am in the process of sending a three-line email from my Gmail account with no images or attachments.  It is still “waiting to send.”
4. My power outlet does not work, so as I wait, my battery life is eroding.
5. The last time I updated the sheet, my computer locked up for 4 minutes and 34 seconds as my friends at Apple pushed me a set of software updates that completely absorbed my bandwidth.  Automatically.
6. While that email still has not shown me that it has sent, I have received “chat” messages from recipients talking about the email and the response that I have already received from the recipient.

So if technology cannot support an Internet connection or a power outlet on a new Boeing 787 Dreamliner, flying a flagship route for a major airline, why should I be concerned that machines will take over the world?

The reality is that we have to accept we are the owners of digital Model T’s.  We are the generation that pays more to accept less and help fund the connected world that we will leave our children.  Oh sure, I can digitally connect my house and turn on the lights or change the thermostat when I’m away, but I have to buy an Echo ($100), plus a Nest thermometer ($234), plus the wireless electric plugs for the light ($25), plus the wireless router ($100), and the home internet connection ($40/mo), and a smartphone to access the internet (iPhone X, of course, @ $999) while I am away from home, plus the phone’s usage plan ($140/mo).  That is $1638 to change the temperature on the thermostat before I get home.  Or turn on a light.  Is it worth it?  And how will I know it actually worked?

Of course it is worth it when we turn that little dial on our cell phone in front of our friends: look what I can do!  But we are paying for this.  Just like when those people paid for a Model T without having a road to drive it on, fuel stations to fill it up, or mechanics to keep it running.  They bought them because they were cool, and because they bought them people built those roads, opened gas stations, and went to school to be mechanics.

I just wish the technology industry would stop trying to convince me that they know what they are doing.  I would like to see an honest commercial for the Amazon Echo:

Happy guy smiles at the camera, “Alexa, play me a song!”

Excited female voice, “Okay, I will charge the credit card I have on file $99 for Amazon Prime so you can access our music library.”

Puzzled look, “No, play the song on Pandora!”

Silence.

Deep frown, “Alexa, play me a song on Pandora”

Smug female voice, “Sorry, I can’t access Pandora.”

“Shit!” Looks for phone to grant Alexa access to Pandora.

As he logs in, Alexa quietly laughs in the background as she downloads his listening history and revises his targeted ads, altering his entire browsing experience.

I do not know how to stop this injustice except to keep paying and hope that it gets better.  Except my cell phone bill was cheaper five years ago.  And I cannot help but think that the reason some of the highest market values on Wall Street are tech giants ISN’T because they are making things cheaper and passing that savings on to us.

No, like a crack dealer, they give us a little taste for free and then start charging.  And charging.  And they tell us we need more, for just a little more.  And we pay.

I heard once that only two types of retailers call their customers “users:” drug dealers and tech companies.  Coincidence?

Somewhere in the back, a Google Home is listening, and laughing.  And my email is “Still waiting.”

 

 

Dear John – I mean Tim,

We have to talk.

We have had a lot of wonderful times together. You were my first – way back in 1985 when I was still in high school. Since then we have spent so much time together: so many late nights, early mornings, walks in the park, trips, moves, seasons of life, times spent crying over the spilled milk of life.  It is hard to see my life without you in it.

But you have changed.

When this started we were both young, naïve, and new to this world. When my friends were all PC, we were pounding out papers in MacWrite, using a mouse to draw in MacPaint, and playing games on those 3-1/2 inch discs that did not fit my friends’ computers.

Years later I put 10,000 songs in my pocket, sold my favorite guitar to buy a blueberry iMac, and bought a revolutionary device that was a phone in name only. When I started a business my first dollar was spent buying a MacBook Pro.

It was perfect. We understood each other and as I grew, you kept pace, blossoming with each new phase of our relationship. We had our troubles, but it was those troubles that formed our bonds.

But recently you have become distant and distracted. It started when you messed with my photos, then my documents, and now with my music. All you can talk about is “cloud” this and “family sharing” that, but instead of improving the situation each interlinked device keeps getting cut off and I can never access what I want where I want to.

All of this is supposed to free up memory and help make everything more accessible, but anything that I clear by paying for your services is still somehow blocked. And your operating systems keep bloating to absorb what little space I had to start with.

And then there is my kids. You addict them with your Siren-screen while stubbornly refusing to give me the tools to manage their access. Oh, sure, I can disable my Apple Watch if someone steals it, but I cannot set a time limit on my kids iPhones, or iPods? And yes, I do blame you that there is not a good app available that handles this.

Everything in this digital world looks amazing on television, but it breaks down – usually literally – when I try to use it in real life. I mean, it is wonderful that Siri has a pre-programmed funny joke when I ask her to divide by zero, but when I am driving and I want to call someone, she can barely retrieve half of my contacts, she can never quite tell me what time the shop I am heading to is closing, and her ability to read and take dictation is abysmal.

When I brought you into a meeting, I was a rebel. When I dragged you around the world, we were inseparable. When you carried me through my EMBA we were cohorts. You used to make my life more seamless but now if feels like we are growing apart.

I really should tell you: there is someone else.

They are not you, but they are getting closer. They are harmonizing my devices the way you used to. They are making my life easier the way you used to. They are anticipating my needs the way you used to. I know I am abnegating my privacy to gain convenience, but at least they deliver that convenience.

You have always been special to me.   It was your cute little flaws that made you enticing. It was always different with you which made it both exciting and frustrating, but never dull. These days you just seem bored and stiff, going through the motions.

When you have finally been caught doing what we always knew you did it makes it hard to overlook everything else. I feel betrayed because you want to be everyone’s favorite. In doing so, you are making too many sacrifices.

I finally gave in to your demands and upgraded both my iOS and Mac OS. The upgrade upended my iPhone and hard-crashed my Air. I did not need any new features, and now that I have recovered I can report no difference from before, except neither device works as well. I was just trying to make you happy so you would stop begging me to “upgrade.”

If you are listening, stop chasing everyone else and remember that you are the one in the lead. Be better. Get back to integrating and striving for the next thing rather than the next dollar.

Henry Ford once said, “A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits.  They will be embarrassingly large.” Henry Ford never set out to make cars. Instead, he set out to provide a service by making transportation affordable. You need to find your way back to identifying what service you provide.