What is Enough?

I'm going to take a break today from The Experiment and talk about a great new website I discovered. It's called Occupy The Board Room, and it allows people to send "Pen Pal" letters to some of the 1% richest people in our nation.

I hope you'll check out the site, and write your own heartfelt letter to one of these wealthy individuals.

I wrote a letter to James Johnson, a board member of Goldman Sachs. (I wonder if he might be related to Jamie Johnson (of the Johnson & Johnson family), creator of the compelling documentary "The One Percent", which aired on HBO in 2006?)

Here's the letter I sent him. I hope he writes back!

Mr. Johnson: 

My name is David Lynch. I am a solo-preneur with my own graphic design business.
Up until a few years ago, I didn't mind working 60, 70, 80 hours a week, because I was building something for myself. 

In my mid 40s, I was able to buy my first home. I started building a SEP account for my retirement. I was close to meeting my financial goals. 

Then, the housing market tanked, and 75% of my diverse clientele either went bankrupt or cut back dramatically, leaving me with 1/4 of the workload I once had. 

I decided to act in the most financially responsible way I could. I agreed to a short sale of my home, but my bank wouldn't forgive the deficiency, so I went bankrupt to protect myself from that debt. Though I have simplified my life to the bare essentials, I still struggle to find enough work to meet basic expenses. 

I'm not complaining - I'm simply laying out the state of my life and how it's changed in the last few years. 

I'm learning to find satisfaction in simple things, like a warm, sunny day when I can go outside and listen to the birds, or a tight embrace from my daughter. I'm learning not to focus so much on the material things I may or may not have, but rather to find contentment in the relationships I have, and be satisfied that I  have access to enough food, clothing and shelter to live simply, in relative comfort. 

On occasion, I think about someone of your stature and wonder if you ever feel that sense of satisfaction? 

Is there ever a moment when you lean back in your executive chair, or in your garden chair and say to yourself, "Ahh! I've finally got enough. I am thoroughly satisfied with all I have!"? 

Or once an acquisition is completed, do you experience an anticlimactic sensation that leaves you hungry for the next merger, the next financial triumph? 

John Muir once said of billionaire railroad magnate E.R. Harriman, "I have all the money I want, and he hasn't." 

Do you think you'll ever reach a point when you have all the money you want - a time you can relax and enjoy the fruit of your labors? 

If not, and you continue on the quest for more riches, what goal do you hope to attain, besides increasing your net worth? How will you know when you reach that goal? 

You might well say to me, "Wait a minute, Mr. Lynch, do you have all the money you want?" 

And I would have to truthfully answer, "No." 

I want to be able to send my daughter to college, to provide decent health care for my family, to build a nest egg that affords a modest retirement. I do not currently have sufficient funds to accomplish these things. Those are my goals, and once I reach them, I will be able to say, "I've got enough. 

I wonder: if a few of the most wealthy people in our country were capable of saying "I've got enough", might there be enough for Americans like myself to meet our modest financial goals? 

And if that doesn't happen, aren't you at all concerned about the vast number of Americans who are beginning to stand up and say "I've had enough!" and have begun to work collectively to change the unfair distribution of wealth as it currently stands? 

I hope that you can see outside your personal realm and consider that the question "What is enough?" applies not only to your own personal estate and family, but also to the needs of the entire nation. 

We are all in this together. What you do affects the rest of us, and what we do also has the potential to affect you. 

I hope you consider helping create a nation where we all have enough. The rest of us are on that path. Our current call to action is "We are the 99%." However, I look forward to the day we can say, "We are the 100%." 

Enough said.

The Experiment Continues!

To my delight, yesterday Rebecca handed me a new task sheet - one she wants me to accomplish this work week (Monday - Friday).

If you're not familiar with The Experiment, please visit earlier posts on this blog.

My week's tasks are:

1) Start a new Vision Board. I had one at my old house in 2007, but Rebecca thinks it is in need of an update - and I think she's right. I am to work on this a little each day. I was delighted to receive this task, because I have been wanting to update the Vision Board (Dream Board), for quite some time. This task gives me permission to put some energy into it!

It's nice to look back on the old Vision Board and see some of the things on it that are now reality. The biggest one is of course "Passion - A Partner - The Perfect Fit". I created this Vision Board right after my separation - and just before I met Beth. It's amazing to think back on how this wish arrived via expedited delivery! Our relationship has been growing ever since, and we plan to get married soon. If I had to choose to have only one element on the Vision Board come true, it would be this one.

Lucky for me, that isn't the only item on the Vision Board that is becoming reality. There are other elements that I've achieved - and some goals that I am on the pathway toward accomplishing.

A few years ago, we did travel to a surprise destination - Alaska. And since 2007, I've also traveled to California, Maryland, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York state, Virginia and West Virginia. Hopefully, a trip to Europe or back to the West Coast will come soon - I'd love to go back and visit more of my old friends on their own turf.

I've been on the path to spiritual growth, as well. I expect I'll be on this path the rest of my days. I have made meditation a fairly regular practice in my life. And I go to yoga class once a week - something I had never done before making this Vision Board!

I look forward to updating my Vision Board and continuing to chase my quests and muses. I'll post the new Vision Board once it's finished.

2) Visit Only 3 Media Sources (Monday only). Rebecca and I had a big discussion about this one. What she is asking me to do is release some of the weight that bad news lays on my shoulders by minimizing my exposure to all news.

I tried to explain that there are many news stories that I find positive and uplifting, like the hope and promise of the Occupy Wall Street protests. Rebecca asserted that news is news, and I should minimize my exposure to all of it. On Monday I adhered to the task, but today I allowed myself to check in at all my regular news sources.

Still, in the spirit of the task, I will continue the week minimizing my focus on what Rebecca would call "dreadful" news stories.

I'll let you know how I did with both tasks at the end of the week!

My Life Job Description

I have been thinking a lot about the state of my career lately.

I have identified myself as a graphic designer since 1984, when I got my first job at a greeting card company. A few years later, I started my own company. For over 27 years, I have labeled myself "graphic designer" - and during most of the time, I could confidently add the word "successful" to that moniker. During a good deal of my career, I also based nearly 100% of my self identity on that career.

However, with the changes in the economy, being a graphic designer has become a part-time enterprise for me. So lately when I think of the myself as a graphic designer, the association is accompanied by stress and negative feelings. Many descriptors come to mind, mostly negative - none are currently synonymous with the word "success".

If I were to base my estimation of my life solely on career right now, it would not be an attractive endeavor; it would be about as productive as hopping on a butt-kicking machine for a protracted round of gluteal smacks. I include the diagram above to remind myself how ridiculous that would be. And I need to be reminded frequently, because I engage in such mental self-spankings more often than I care to admit.

I've thought of a way to break this habit. The solution sounds simple enough: throw out the equation that states "career = life". However, after years of embracing this formula, I realize it's going to take some practice before I can abandon it completely.

One of the techniques I am using to break my acceptance of this faulty equation create a "life job description". Step one is to realize that my career is merely a fraction of my overall life job description.

This weekend, I declared that part of my life job description is "to be a good father".

I worked diligently at that job, especially this weekend. Beth was out of town, so I devoted most of the weekend to being with Rebecca - and not just being with her geographically. I paid close attention to her, dialogued with her, shared experiences with her. I made sure that I was as "present" as I could be.

We went to the farmer's market, I took her to her tennis lesson, then to the Fall Festival at Hickory Nut Gap Farm, then for ice cream. Once we returned home, I cooked dinner, and followed it up a backyard fire (complete with marshmallow roasting). Finally, we finished watching a kid's movie we had started. Sunday morning, we went to the local tennis courts and practiced together. I needed to spend much of the rest of the day painting the remainder of the exterior of my work shed, and I made sure to include Rebecca. She was a great help, wedging into a tight area and painting the portion I could not reach.

The best aspect of the weekend was that we didn't argue at all. Rebecca said that we may have had one minor disagreement, but she can't even remember what it was about.

By making "being a good father" part of my life job description, I was able to regard the weekend as a rousing success.

The next step is to further expand the list that constitutes my life job description. Doing so will help me feel more well-rounded, as well as minimize the negative impact of any elements that aren't going as well as I would like. I will make it a point to focus more on those list items which foster success and a sense of accomplishment.

Having many elements within my life job description allows for ebb and flow - some elements may take prominence while others may become less important. Creating a broad and flexible life job description opens the door for more opportunity. Who knows - maybe the element in my life job description that I currently categorize as my career will shift or change some day?

Becoming My Own Taskmaster (in a good way)

I really miss Rebecca's task sheets (see earlier posts about The Experiment)!

So today, I decided to make my own task sheet, using a technique I remembered from a creativity seminar. I wrote out the page using my non-dominant (left) hand - it brings out the child in me when I do it this way (though I'm sure a young child could do a better job of it. Note to self - never try to draw a mandala with your non-dominant hand. It ends up looking like a crumpled wad of paper!) It's no substitute for Rebecca's über-cool task sheets, but it's better than nothing!

The first task I gave myself was a 7-hour Facebook fast. Today, at least, it wasn't difficult to resist the nervous, twitchy desire to catch up on the endless scroll of activity there.

I completed the second task (25 minutes of meditation), albeit a little later than I would have liked. When I wait until 2pm or later, I get a little dozey midway through, and today was no exception. Fortunately, I was able to keep the nodding to a minimum with concerted, deeper breaths.

The third task was to tackle an activity on my "extra curricular" list. Yesterday, when the angst gremlin was trying to get me, I decided to make a list of to-do items for idle times. Just the action of making this list was enough to tame that gremlin yesterday.

One of the tasks on the "extra-curricular" list is to set up my Cafe Press store and start populating it with products. I had struggled with the basic store design a few weeks ago. I had arrived at a great name for the store and created the masthead design and was in the process of hashing out the HTML, only to find out someone else had already taken the name. I got discouraged and abandoned the project temporarily.

Yesterday, I had a flash of inspiration, and came up with the name "GeeGaw", which rekindled my enthusiasm. I did a search, and could not find another Cafe Press store with that name - huzzah! Today, I figured out how to implement an all-graphic masthead and got the basic shell of the store ready. This weekend, I will add products. It feels good to be past that hurdle.

As I put the store together, I couldn't help but notice the exercise in futility occurring in the neighbor's yard. A young guy was feverishly running a leaf blower - on a day when the wind was blowing 20-30 knots and the sky was filled with leaves. It's bad enough to endure the incessant whinny of a leaf blower, but to hear one on a day when the wind negates its every attempt seemed to intensify its shrill wail. In response, I came up with this seasonal bumper sticker design for those of you who feel the same way I do about leaf blowers. You can get one of these stickers at my online store, Gee-Gaw.

Maybe after 30 days, I'll adopt creating tasks as my own habit? Even if I do, I'll still look forward to the creation of Rebecca's task cards!

Taming The Gremlin

As I was driving Rebecca to school, I starting thinking about my day and how much (or little, as the case may be), work I had to accomplish today. The little angst-producing gremlin in my stomach started doing his usual acrobatics.

At this time of year - I used to spend a little extra money on a short trip, or a new Fall shirt, or something like that. These days, there is no extra money, and thinking about lack always excites that pesky little gremlin.

So I started thinking of ways I could stop the gremlin in his tracks and do something different. I want to recapture that peaceful, open feeling that washed over me yesterday while I sat atop the Buck Springs Tunnel on the Blue Ridge Parkway. I felt much more creative after that experience.

Rather than worry about what I don't have, I started thinking about what I do have in plentiful supply: the luxury of time. With time, I can still go on a spending spree, so long as I spend it wisely. There are so many helpful things I can do with my time - things that gremlin won't like, because they starve him. Hee hee!

I'll start with a meditation. I can't travel up the Blue Ridge Parkway every morning to capture that serene feeling I experienced yesterday, but I can sit for 25 minutes and clear my mind.

Then, I can schedule time for work and time for creative pursuits, and stick to that schedule. That way, I'll introduce a little more discipline into my daily routine, and feel a better sense of accomplishment once I check off the activities I complete.

When I think of all the tasks Rebecca assigned me over the 30 days, they were all great gremlin-tamers. If I get stuck for ideas, I have 30 blog posts to remind me!

The Experiment - Wrap Up

Yesterday was the final day of The Experiment where my 10-year-old daughter assigns me tasks I must complete.

First off, here's how yesterday's tasks went:

Meditation went fine. It's been awhile, so my "monkey mind" was chattering quite a bit, as expected. It felt great to sit with the rain and wind swirling around the house. The period at the beginning of yoga class was another opportunity to focus on my breath, so I took advantage of that, too. I marvel at how I can tune out the high-rise construction noise across the street from the yoga studio - and do so for fairly long stretches. And when I do hear the workers, I simply pretend they are elves pounding chocolate chips into giant cookies.

I had at least 5 conversations without talking about myself. I had a few at yoga class, then a few more at our polling place. (I was disgusted to learn there was only a 10% voter turnout yesterday, but that's another can of worms.) I made sure that when Rebecca returned home from school, my first conversation with her was all about her day. I am committed to continuing this practice: listen more, prattle less.

And yes, I walked the full neighborhood loop. Our polling place is on the loop, so we walked in the rain to go cast our vote, and then completed the loop afterwards. The air was wet and fairly warm, and it rained lightly during the entire walk. The part I liked was coming back home after a wet walk - that  stretch of time when you warm up and dry off, and the house feels cozier than usual.

That wraps up the last day of The Experiment. So now what?

Even though I don't have one of Rebecca's task sheets with her amazing illustrations to follow today, I still feel like I have a duty to carry on in the spirit of The Experiment. And I think I'm off to a good start:

After dropping Rebecca off at school, I decided to take a short stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway back home, since there is already some Fall color on what is called "the commuter stretch" of the Parkway. The road changed moods at every twist as it road snaked in and out of the fog. The first rays of sun pushed through the mist, making for some amazing light. I kept planning to turn around, but the drive kept getting better.

I regretted not having my camera, but I told myself that this was a morning I needed to drink everything in with my senses, and not let a mechanical apparatus interfere with that process. (The photos below are not from today's excursion.)

By the time I got to Bent Creek, I knew I was headed all the way to Mount Pisgah. Soon, I was driving through fog-shrouded trees enveloped by rays of sunlight. Before long, I climbed above the clouds left by the clearing storm and into a clear, royal blue sky. The ridge lines were illuminated by the low sun, making the mountains look like a giant, bunched-up polarfleece blanket. When I arrived at Mt. Pisgah, I took the path I recently discovered that leads to the top of the Buck Springs tunnel.

At the top of the tunnel, I felt an inner quiet fill me. I realized that for long stretches, I could not hear a single motor - no cars, no airplanes, just water dripping off the granite escarpment, a light breeze rustling through the trees, and a few bold bird calls. I felt myself slow down internally as I took in all the sights and sounds. After about 30 minutes, I headed back on the trail, walking at a snail's pace and savoring every footstep, pausing occasionally to look at the smear of cirrus clouds in the sky overhead (another sun dog sighting!) and gazed down as the low-angled sunlight illuminated every vein on the leaves at my feet.

A few thoughts from my inner gremlin popped up, like "you should be at work", but I made deep exhalations to push them out of me. I instead told myself that this was exactly where I should be, and exactly what I should be doing in that moment: slowing down and savoring a quiet morning surrounded by nature. I don't know what, if anything, experiencing moments like this one will inspire in me later on, but I trust that this is the path I must take to rediscover inspiration. I need to remember to carve out many more such moments in my life that allow me to shed negative thoughts and immerse myself in the magic this planet has to offer.

Conclusions?

In recent posts, I've posed the question of whether or not I can detect a shift in myself as a result of The Experiment. One friend suggested that maybe the shift will come in my relationship with Rebecca - and I think he's right in that The Experiment has brought us closer together.

I asked Rebecca what she thinks should come next now that The Experiment has concluded. She mentioned that she was planning to observe me for the next five days and if she notices me slipping back into old habits, or getting grumpy and stressed out, that she may assign more tasks.

However, at Beth's suggestion, Rebecca is planning to assemble a set of tasks in the form of a deck of cards, so that I can shuffle and pick one when needed. I think this is a great idea! Perhaps a set of cards with a companion book is in order, so that other people can use this technique? Who knows?

The one thing I do know is: this doesn't feel like an ending. It feels more like a beginning.

Thanks to everyone who has been reading the blog, offering words of encouragement. Rebecca and I were both touched to learn that a few of you actually followed along working on the tasks, so we send our special thanks to you!

The Experiment - Day 30!

Wow! Is it really the final day of The Experiment? Of course, I'll make one more post after this one to let you know how today's tasks went - as well as offer a general wrap-up of the month. Still, it's hard to believe this is the last task sheet. What will I do with my days without these tasks to complete??

Yesterday's tasks went well - though I didn't tackle the first one until 5pm (create a hand-made Thank-You Card). I wanted to give a card to Rebecca to thank her for all her diligent help with The Experiment. It was fun sneaking out to the workshop and fiddling around with leaves, spray-mount and colored pencils - just like the olden, pre-computer days of graphic design. Luckily, I still have a box of pre-digital tools that I saved. Rebecca was very pleased with the card, and emphasized that I was capable of wonderful things even when a computer is not handy.

I had just settled into bed last night when I remembered that I hadn't done Task #2 - write a poem. I chose to write about trees - more specifically leaves. I felt confined having to work with the ABAB rhyming format. I dashed something off that fit the format and returned to bed. I reworked it a little this morning, but my inner critic is slashing it to pieces, with words like "trite", "hackneyed" and "cutesy", and calling me names like "Henry Bumwad Dumbfellow". What a nasty little cat-caller he is. Maybe I need to write another poem in the format of my choosing - a poem that will be so wondrous that it will silence the critics?

Here's today's tasks:

1. Meditate - you haven't done this for a long time!
2. Have 5 conversations without talking about yourself.
3. Walk the full neighborhood loop. (Of course, she would assign this on a rainy day!)

I'll let you know tomorrow how the last day's tasks went. Since it's the last day, I'd better make sure I do them all, and do them well!