“Yeah, but his smile is a lot bigger than yours”
We took the young men backpacking around Escalante this month. We had a great time exploring around Death Hallow, Sand Creek, and of course lower and upper Calf Creek falls. At the upper falls we were jumping off a short cliff into the quite cold water when a group of young couples from Provo showed up. They all jumped off too except for one of the guys; he just wouldn’t do it. The youngest scout in our group, who had just barely turned 12, started jawing this guy for not getting in. The spectator responded that he didn’t want to end up shivering like the scouts were. To this his friend replied: “yeah he’s shivering, but his smile is a lot bigger than yours”.
Life can’t really be lived as a spectator can it?
On the same trip we listened to a talk by Scott Simmons titled: “You only live once, but if you live right once is enough”. I highly recommend it. That’s a mantra to live by.
Not just a dream
Several years ago I caught a short news clip about Paul Newman opening a new summer camp. The news show included part of his speech at the dedication. He said something to the effect of “everyone dreams of doing great things, but today we’re actually doing something great”.
In All Earnestness
The Last Lecture is a great read. If you haven’t read it yet, well then stop wasting your time here and go find a copy.
In the Last Lecture, Randy Pausch discusses being earnest versus being hip. I’d never thought of the two as opposites before, but I found it quite enlightening. I’ve always leaned way to the earnest side myself, as in probably a bit too serious, definitely not hip. As I’ve thought about this I think Randy himself was a great example: happy, very fun loving, and yet earnest in everything he did. That’s just so much cooler than being cool.
Sometimes I have to remind myself to not be too serious. There’s a story that I chuckle at now to remind me about this. After high school a lot of my friends went off to college. One day I went to a friends parent’s house to get her address. I knocked on the door, her little sister answered and I asked for her parents. She asked me why I was there and I said it was about her sister. She then replied with: “Why? What happened to her? Did she die”? Apparently my demeanor was a little too serious for the occasion.
Being earnest is a virtue too often overlooked and undervalued, especially when it’s combined with a cheerful heart. Thanks to Randy Pausch for sharing his many ideas and experiences. Again, I loved the Last Lecture and will probably bring it up a few more times.
More Mustang Musings
That was too much fun to hear everyone’s memories, I have to add a few more.
Joe mentioned all the speeding tickets, (that car was such a cop magnet) so let’s review the first one. Springville football game, on the way home I’m following Jerms and he heads the wrong way. So I pass him, get him turned around, and then just coasting down the hill into town I get nailed. Shouldn’t there have been some good karma coming my way?
I picked up Phil, the amazing concert pianist, straight from one of his practice sessions to head to Salt Lake for a volleyball or basketball game. What’s the first thing he does? Cranks up the already pretty loud, and not exactly classical, music.
How about Tim borrowing the car for a date, only to be stuck in the driveway for most of the evening cause the thing wouldn’t go in reverse. That car was ridiculously hard to shift and to be fair Tim drove it all the time. One time I even got stuck going through the dip just up the street from my house shifting into 2nd and my cousins all came out and mocked me for ages. I’m also 100% certain I never lost a race, unless it was because I couldn’t shift, or else it was my mom’s car.
I think a lot of kids thought I was a show off, sitting in the parking lot revving the engine. Truth was that thing never would run when cold. Jeff lived near the parade route and early one 4th of July decided to leave before he was blocked in for the day. About as soon as he got out of the driveway a cop pulled him over and said he knew Jeff was trouble when he heard him revving the engine so loud that early in the morning.
How about some random thoughts and a few lessons learned?
Carefree summer to me will always mean on the lake, sand court, or up the canyon, with a little Tom Petty for good measure.
Country music will always be the mainstay for this everyday guy, but sometimes you have to crank it up a notch or two.
I still find it enjoyable to throw on the monkey suit and some tunes and spend a few hours working on a car. Though the old rule that it’s not swearing if you’re working on a car still applies now and then.
Oakley glasses are required for all outdoor activities.
I’ll never lose that thrill of acceleration, but the Grand Prix certainly doesn’t quite throw you back like the stang did. Oh and I miss driving a stick shift everyday.
I’ll also be forever concerned about living, with four little boys, on the same street I used to fly down on my way home from school.
In high school I placed too much value on innate gifts and not nearly enough on effort, desire, and persistence.
High school is all to often all about external labels. Now, even though my external labels may be impressive like father, software developer, instead of just water skier extraordinaire, it’s still what’s on the inside that counts.
Good friends are invaluable. I spent one high school year in California and that was good to get me out of my shell and I met some great people, but the guys I was hanging out with weren’t always so good. Coming back home was the best thing for me. Phil’s right, it was an amazing group of people that we went to school with.
My hope is that in one sense I’m still the same guy I’ve always been, yet in other ways not even close. Of course the gospel of Jesus Christ is much more important to me today and the biggest differentiator.
How High Do You Set The Bar?
What is it that often holds us back from doing our best? Do we get in the rut of just going through the motions? Or do we have inner fears about our best falling short of some standard and we’d rather remain willfully ignorant?
There’s a theory that some professional athletes never reach their potential because of this fear. They’d rather have the option of thinking that if they’d been in their best form they could’ve played as well as anyone, than find out for certain if that’s true. This fear isn’t really an issue for me, but I don’t live on such a public stage either.
However I find myself either just going through the motions or simply not focused on the task at hand. For example I’ll sit at my desk and think about what needs to be accomplished in a meeting, then in the meeting I’ll be thinking about everything that I should be doing back at my desk.
It’s clear that humans have incredible capacity to make a difference. Could we feel a difference if we each gave a bit more effort or focus? Even in normal everyday life? Perhaps we could really interact with our children, bring some life and energy to a meeting, or simply enjoy the little things a bit more.
More thoughts here:
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