From the Bottom of the Bucket

“It’s just a shot away”- The Rolling Stones

Reentry

I just this morning took my second COVID-19 vaccine.  This marks the beginning of the end of an ordeal that has lasted exactly three hundred and fifty-one days.  I know this because I started a diary on March 16^th 2020, the first day of pure social isolation.  Except for three visits to my neighborhood bar last summer and two camp outs, I have not been in contact with the outside world. 

As I prepare to reenter the world, I wonder how I have changed because of this experience.  It is also interesting to ponder how the world itself has changed.  How will the experience of the past year alter my behavior? My relationships? What about my Activities? Will I try to go back to where I was last year? Is that even possible?

What if you were offered a year sabbatical with complete control over how you spend your time?  That’s how I chose to frame my experience.  For me, the challenge has been to find the appropriate level of Activities to stay in rhythm with The Flow.  Each year that we live alters our capacity and adjustments have to be made.  Not too much, not too little. Take a look at your past year’s actions, they may contain lessons about what you really value

One thing is for sure, I relish the idea of returning to socializing (in person).  The nurse who gave me my shot said she can’t wait to get out, listen to some live music …and dance! I suspect that each of us has a list of things we will do as soon as we get our lives back.  The absence of those things has made defining them easier.

One final comment.   Rainy days do come.  It is more than a cliché that those who prepare for them will stand a better chance of surviving them. Make saving for one a part of your “new normal”

 

SPECIAL NOTE: This month’s blog is dedicated to my Mother who was one of the 500,000 people who lost their lives to COVID-19.

 

Until next month, I wish you fulfillment

Bob

 

 

 

 

From the Bottom of the Bucket

            “Out with the New…In with the Old”

“These are the good old’ days”-Carly Simon

Well, 2020 is now history and the New Year finds us groping about in the fog of the “new” normal.   I am feeling my age, as I long for the “good old days“ and to those much younger to me, I am sure I seem like a relic caught in a time warp.  I am reminded of listening to my parents wish for a return to the “simple” life.  Of course, it is all an illusion, as change is a biological imperative of nature and Nature always wins.

Still, it seems to be we all are having a bout of nostalgia. A desire to return to the “old” normal.  I think this yearning is especially strong in the category of the “little” things. I had to adjust my exercise program and each time I workout in my living room, I miss the social environment of my gym.  As I write this we are preparing for the Super Bowl, but no parties.   Cardboard cut outs in the stands, fake crowd noise on the TV!

All though my wife has entered a new level on her cooking, we both miss the conviviality of a restaurant dinner party. Going to the movies? Forget it. How about a cold one at my neighborhood tavern?   Not happening. But you know all this already. 

Now we are starting to emerge from this haze.   We will attempt to return to our former habits. Can we? Should we?  What many of us took for granted now seems precious.  But wasn’t it always? It seems a shame that it takes a calamity to make us appreciate what a miracle our daily mundane life is.   Michael J. Fox says in his new book No Time Like the Future “Gratitude fuels optimism. Optimism is about the promises of the future, gratitude looks at the present” I have learned much about gratitude in the past ten months. Those lessons will be applied in defining my new normal.

Whatever your new normal turns out to be, I hope that your attention to the little pleasures in life and are grateful for all the good things that we might have taken for granted in the past. That could be Covid’s golden gift to you.

 

Until next month, I wish you fulfillment.

 

Bob

 

 

 

 

From the Bottom of the Bucket

“So you say this is Christmas

Well, what have you done?”  - John Lennon

Home for the Holidays

It’s Christmas morning at the Cole household.  “I’ll be home for Christmas” has a whole new meaning this year as my wife Sandy and I begin our ninth month in the special mode of isolation. This is added to the long list of adjustments everyone has had to make in 2020.   All this change has forced us to dig deeper into ourselves and find ways to honor how we affirm what we really believe in and the actions we adopt as the “new” normal.

One of the aspects that changed almost immediately was my exercise.  With the closure of the gym, I had to retool my weekly routine.  Which meant my cardio work went from elliptical to walking. It seems ironic to me that at this late stage of my life that I, my balance having improved since the days of my infancy, should return to the activity that I started out on,

My walks take me thru a park nearby, which the city has closed to automobile traffic so pedestrians can walk in solitude.   Each time I walk, I pass people with a greeting that normally goes “good morning”, but on Christmas Eve I replaced it with “Merry Christmas”.  While some stare ahead, oblivious to the world around them, most people acknowledge the greeting with one of their own.  It was during this walk that I had my first “peace on earth” Moment.

I felt the joy and kindness in each Merry Christmas, as people who wanted nothing more than a simple connection to humanity that has been missing so much from this year. The sincerity of this connection felt good.  It wasn’t a simple gesture, but a phrase that embodied the message of the holidays, peace on earth good will to men.

During these challenging times, don’t forget that there is good to be found in our daily Activities, remember to embrace the positive possibilities of the moment.  It takes a special effort, but the rewards are worth it. 

Until next month, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Bob

 

 

 

 

From the Bottom of the Bucket

“ The nearer your destination, the more you”re slip siding away” – Paul Simon

The Same Thing….Only Different.

I’m baaack….!

You may or may not have noticed, it’s been five-month break in publishing this blog.  That pause in the thirty-plus years of its history was due to a number of factors.  The most relevant was my commitment to not post if I didn’t feel I had something positive to share. Finding something positive in the current environment has proved to be a challenge, but here goes.

I am struck about all the gnashing and wailing of so many people.  They decry the current situation as “the end of the world”. I can’t help but counter this mindset with “been there, done that”.  Without going into specifics, my seventy plus years of experience keeps telling me while the circumstances might be different, the challenges are pretty much the same as they always have been.   If we can just step back from the emotions of the moment, we can see that the root of all this anguish is basically the same as it always has been, to ascribe to the higher ideals of civilization.   A central theme of these ideals is “we” instead of “me” or taking the high road.

We only have a limited amount resources to direct during our short existence in this world. It seems to be a better use of them to focus on compassionate behavior.  As with most things, the simple concepts are the richest.  Understanding, love, honor and duty are well known ideals.  We just need to put more effort in to translating them into our daily Activities. This will not happen casually.  We have to stop before each action and ask ourselves “Does this action represent the best of me?”

The foundation of this blog has been a structure which I call The System.  It is a practical format that emphasizes Roles, Activities, and Fulfillment.  It really doesn’t matter if you use this model or not.  What does matter is that you be thoughtful and aligned in your life, using the core ideals of mankind as your guiding beacons.  After all, that is what the human experience is all about.

Finally,  I want to thank all my friends for their input and feedback.  Your point of view is an invaluable tool in helping me “walk the talk”.  I can only hope that I have somehow returned the favor.

Until next month, I wish you fulfillment

Bob

 

 

 

 

From the Bottom of the Bucket

            “Enthusiasm is a Choice”

“This is for all the lonely people, thinking life has passed you by…

Don’t give up till you drink from the Silver Cup

You’ll never know until you try….” - America…

Day 1 of my future.  These past five months have been learning experience.  I am sure you can say the same. It is times like these that out true character is revealed to ourselves. Stripped from all the distractions of “normal” life, we tend to gravitate to our authentic character and left without interruption, we reinforce this personality thru repetition.

I know I have had a difficult time with this.  My efforts to affirm my beliefs have been drowned in a sea of negativity.  Me, who thrives on laughter haven’t heard any for quite some time. My yearning for adventure has been limited to the walls of my home.  My enjoyment of spontaneity has been starved under the weight of routine.  It is all to easy to lose sight of my vow of “constant growth”.

But again and again I am drawn back to my Mission Statement.

The work I put into drafting this statement, some thirty years ago, has helped me through some tough times. Today is no different.  Dan Crenshaw in his book Fortitude says that the ability to choose your response is the only area that we totally control and that freedom must be guided by s strong sense of beliefs and values.

I hope that you have had the opportunity to define, in the most concise manner possible, your core ideology. It will serve as a guiding light as you travel through the inevitable periods of darkness in our lives.  If you would like a worksheet to assist in drafting one, drop me an email and I will send one to you.

 

Until next month, I wish you fulfillment.

 

Bob

 

 

 

From the Bottom of the Bucket

            “Back to The Past.”

“If I could turn back time….” Cher

One of the more fascinating aspects of sleeping is dreaming.  Some of the medications I take for my Parkinson’s has a side effect of affecting this process.  Dreams tend to be clearer and more real, which can be good or bad.

Recently I had a dream which, as I often do, caused me to reflect on my real life.  I suppose that here is a direct connection between those two thoughts, but I will leave that to Dr. Freud and company.  Let’s continue. The main story line is that somehow (dreams don’t submit themselves to the measure of realism) I was granted the right to go back in time to a period that was exactly two years ago to the day, that is July 2018.  My location was at some party where all of my friends had gathered.  I had full knowledge of how the next two years would affect each of them, but I could not share that information directly with them.  As I mingled around the room, the conversations ranged from “What have you been doing?” to “What have you got planned?”...,the usual party banter.

I moved about listening in on these conversations, smug with my knowledge about what was actually going to happen.   I cold not resist to drop a few comments. 

“You might consider acquainting yourself with the use of a facemask. ”  I offered.

“The stock market still has room for growth” I quipped, carefully noticing who and who didn’t note my remarks.

As the old song goes, I wish I didn’t know now, what I didn’t know then!

When I rejoined the “real” world the next morning.  The thought occurred to me that, if that situation applied to me, what would I tell myself?  I went back, as a point of reference, to Living in the Bucket, July 2018 edition, entitled  “The ‘On Purpose’ Person. In that column, I discussed how I had used my System to Organize and Align my resources to the process of leading a fulfilling life.  I talked about being the Subject of one’s sentence of life, not the Object.  In short, controlling how we react to life, rather then letting life act on us.   Any advice the experienced Bob would render to the Bob of the Past?

The only thing that came to me is to add to your daily routine, some exercise that would call on you to reinforce how fragile life REALLY is and build the abilities to deal with life daily, before you need use them.  Try to make, in all your daily Activities, the philosophical concept become a real experience. For me, it was an interesting exercise. 

Why don’t you look back on your calendar to two years ago, remind yourself where you were at that time and think about what advice you would give the you of the past?  It might help you be better prepared to handle the next two years.

Until next month, I wish you fulfillment.

Bob

From the Bottom of the Bucket

            “When Life Gives You a Lemon……..”

There's a dark and a trouble side of life
There's a bright and a sunny side too
Though we meet with the darkness and strife
The sunny side we also have in view.



So keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side
Keep on the sunny side of life
It will help you every day it will brighten all the way
If you'll keep on the sunny side of life. –  An old country  standar

d

This pandemic has brought a whole series of lessons about ourselves.  I know I am not unique in tis respect, but since my observations are limited by my perceptions, I am going to share what I have noticed.

First the challenge has increased for those of us that are committed to “the sunny side of life”.  I believe that optimism is a choice that one makes by constantly looking for the good in your experiences. Here are a couple of examples from my recent experiences

My friend Greg has spent the better part of the last five years working on transforming sixty acres of rural backwoods into a spiritual nature preserve. He took this on as a tribute to his wife, who died just before that time.  E has adorned the sanctuary with Native American sculptures (carved out of trees standing on the grounds). He also has formed several lakes and a stone bluff (named for his deceased wife) overlooking the creek that threads through his property.  I recently broke quarantine to attend a campout celebrating the dedication of this mystical place.  It is truly a magical space, made all the more profound by the fact that he has done the lion’s share of the work by himself !

During that event, I received a text from my daughter.  She was alarmed that her son, who is a military policeman in the air force, had been deployed to help with the civil unrest that swept our country.  This is the same grandson that I introduced to the woods on long hikes.

He was being tested at age twenty-five and though he had been trained, it was the first time for the real thing. He did fine (as I knew he would) and learned a few things about himself in the process.

The final episode came this weekend.  We have a group of people that meet once a month to go to a movie, then a restaurant for a dinner discussion along with some wine (mostly the later ).  Well the pandemic took its toll on that event, but we missed the interaction.   My wife, using technology we have learned, set up a Zoom meeting for us.  The movie was streamed live in 4k and premiered last week.  We attended opening night (virtually) and will gather electronically with the group later this month.

What do all these events have in common?  A death, civil unrest, and a pandemic adjustment.  All were met with a positive attitude and transformed into something else.  Optimism is NOT a natural state of mind.  It must be cultivated to be a response through daily practice. It is a habit easily abandoned to gloom and despair, but a little effort you too can walk on the sunny side. 


Until next month, I wish you fulfillment.



Bob