We tell ourselves that we’re either more or less than our real versions because we’re so rarely satisfied with what peers back from the mirror. On occasion, we indulge in honest introspection, but quickly hide away the results of our investigation, believing that since no one else is aware, we’re safe from discovery.

Throughout the stories we tell, we forget one thing: the only audience that truly matters is the internal one that knows the difference between fact and fiction. We believe we’re telling stories for the sake of those around us—parents, spouses, bosses, friends, children. However, if we’re doing the storytelling for others, why do we so often end up with plots that hurt the ones around us?

Two signature perspectives make up a common worldview: fate and self-determination. For the fateful person, life has already been determined and scripted. Fateful storytellers find themselves telling incredibly fanciful tales, full of the possibilities they believe life has denied them.

For the self-determined individual, anything is possible. Their stories are filled with extremes, both good and bad, because they can overcome anything or rise to the occasion as life demands. Between these two extremes lies the reality of wanting to effect a certain result, but realizing that many uncontrollable things will impact the outcome.

I focus on the story because it’s the tool we use in our pursuit of life. Politicians tell you a story about how life will be better if you vote for them. Marketers tell you a story about how life will be better if you buy their product. Parents tell you a story about how life will be better if you do what they say. Such stories often get described as “the truth” or “for your own good.” One must not forget that  stories come with strings and expectations that may not fit our personal script. One must also not forgot that there’s pieces of truth to value in each story.

Every day, you’ll tell yourself a story that includes parts of other people’s stories. The trick is to remember that it’s just a story, and tomorrow there will be another one to take its place.

I forgot my password.

More than the date of my last post, this loss of memory brings home how long it’s been since I’ve put my words on the screen. For the last few months, I’ve been tied up writing words for others. Along the way, I think I forgot that I needed my own. With that in mind here’s a brief review of some of the things that have tickled the edges of my mind during the last three months:

• Please tell me I’m not the only one that wishes the Democrats told the Republicans to go ahead and filibuster. Mind you, I have little liking for the health plan (doesn’t really fix the problem), but I have even less liking for the threats of bullies.
• Does the Christmas plane bomber feel surreal to anyone else? Smuggling explosives in underwear seems like a risky venture. What’s even more surreal is the notion that we’ll somehow be safer by stripping people via x-ray. Maybe I’m simple minded, but I always thought it better to ferret out an airplane plot before the plotter arrived at the airport. I’ve been through airport security enough to realize that TSA peeps are trying to do their job, but they’ve been handed an impossible mission. We all make mistakes at our jobs because we’re human. To think the TSA (or x-ray machines) won’t make a mistake creates a false sense of security. Whenever I enter a scanner in the future, my thought will be, “How much real intelligence could this thing pay for?”
• Does anyone really believe that Google’s threat to pull out of China wasn’t somehow connected to less than desired profits versus the attempts of hackers? Maybe I’m cynical, but I doubt that recent events are really the first time someone has attempted to hack the email accounts of people China likes to watch.
• I want to believe that out of the tragedy in Haiti good things can happen. But what are the odds that the people who need the help and donations the most will fall to the bottom again?
• Ben Bernanke, by the slimmest margin in history, was confirmed for a second term as Fed chairman. Now, whether you blame the man for the downfall of America or praise him for avoiding a second Great Depression, the fact remains that not reconfirming him would have made the market take a tumble. No matter how populist you are, your 401k would still take a hit (again). It’s very easy to say that he aided and abetted all the decisions that led to the financial meltdown, but we participated, too. You really want to remove the guy who seems to have a semi-decent handle on what’s happening from the steering wheel? Politicians trying to duck the target aimed at their back by pinning it to Bernanke’s seem hypocritical at best.
• For all that I’m not an Apple fanboi (or grrl, in this case), I was surprised at how little was surprising about the long-awaited iPad (besides the name). Maybe Apple set the bar too high, but the iPad seems like much less of a game changer than say the iMac or iPhone. Perhaps developers will turn it into something amazing, but if the iPad represents the future of Apple…

I’ll probably write in more detail about these topics and others in the weeks to come, but it seemed time to prime the pump.

He has accomplished much given his age, but has he really accomplished what one must to receive this level of recognition? Does his award decrease the value of past award winners?

Does Nobel Committee Chairman Thorbjoern Jagland have it right when he says, “We hope this can contribute a little bit to enhance what he is trying to do.”?

In this instance, I’m left to conclude that words carry as much weight as action. For once, I’m not sure that words are enough.

While real arguments exist that support both mindsets, they’ve been drowned out of the conversation. Instead we see news stories about “death panels,” the “morality” of passing health care reform, and boycotting Whole Foods. The Whole Foods story leaves me shaking my head. More than 17,000 people have joined the Facebook group, “Boycott Whole Foods.” Why? Here’s the official description:

John Mackey, CEO and co-founder of Whole Foods wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on August 12, 2009 quoting Margaret Thatcher and suggesting that healthcare is a commodity that only the rich, like him, deserve. Whole Foods has built its brand with the dollars of deceived progressives. Let them know your money will no longer go to support Whole Foods’ anti-union, anti-health insurance reform, right-wing activities.

Here’s the link to the full editorial. I’ll leave you to decide whether you agree or disagree with Mackey. The fact remains that instead of talking about the merits of Mackey’s arguments, the focus became boycotting Whole Foods. Then, as borne out by comments on the Facebook page, the discussion veers into people’s other issues with Whole Foods.

After scrolling through a few of first pages, it became clear that the majority of commenters weren’t discussing the actual points raised in Mackey’s editorial.  For me, the first line of Mackey’s editorial raises the biggest question in this debate, regardless of what your position is on health care:

With a projected $1.8 trillion deficit for 2009, several trillions more in deficits projected over the next decade, and with both Medicare and Social Security entitlement spending about to ratchet up several notches over the next 15 years as Baby Boomers become eligible for both, we are rapidly running out of other people’s money.

Why aren’t we having a discussion about the cost of health care reform?

Why aren’t we having a discussion about our current financial obligations?

Why are we not honest enough to admit that sacrifice will be a part of any “solution,” regardless of the source?

If we maintain the status quo, many people will go without health insurance.

If we adopt a plan where more people have health insurance, costs will go up.

Utopia is not an option.

And yet, we can’t have that conversation. We can talk about everything else, but our country seems bent on refusing to behave like the adults I know we can be and face some hard truths:

• Our current financial obligation is $56.4 trillion; that’s money the government (we the people) owe. (source)
• Spreading coverage to more people will, more than likely, lead to cuts in Medicare and Medicaid
• Taxes, at some point, will have to go up to cover the costs
• We can’t continue to raid Social Security to cover additional expenses

I want a real debate. I want a real opportunity to measure both sides, but I doubt the reality will even come close. Who are we as a nation if we can’t talk about the hard truths?

Are you really so comfortable in your recliner that you can’t be bothered to invest the time needed to understand the basics? I’m more than happy to point the finger and politicians. There’s little I like about what our political process has become. However, I can’t abdicate my responsibility as a citizen.

Yes, there’s corporate money, lobbyists, and nefarious networks that protect incumbents. But at some point, you elected those individuals, and only you can remove them. The reaction at the recent town hall meetings, both good and bad, indicates that some people still care enough to voice their opinion. Keep in mind what you’re opinion is worth if you haven’t taken the time to educate yourself about what’s at stake.

If you’re against health care reform, why? Don’t spout the tired line of “government taking over the world.” Instead, ask the question why we haven’t reformed the current programs we have (e.g., Medicaid, Medicare, etc.) to help redress the issue.

If you’re for health care reform, why? Don’t talk to me about a right to health care. Instead, ask the question why are health care spending is almost double the the amount (based on GDP) of other industrialized countries.

Facts give us a framework to help the decision making process. Hate mongering and stirring up fear to achieve a cause should be beneath us, and yet it takes center stage time and again.

“obsessives everywhere in their particular narrow-focused areas of interest (’silos’ is the modern information term), flashing ever more information, ever quicker, in ever shorter bites—the shorter you can make it, the more information there can be—to all the ships at sea.”

Is he right?

Are we focusing on that which interests us the most to the exclusion of things we deem less important? Has the Internet’s ability to drill down to the tiniest of details in specific areas made us oblivious to the larger world around us?

I love information. I love the idea of knowing more tomorrow than I know today. However, I can’t claim to love all information equally. I suspect few people can claim otherwise.

Prior to the Internet and other digital technology, we often had to wade through filters (e.g., newspapers, card catalogs, etc.) to get to the source. In the wading process, we invariably brushed up against “stuff” that didn’t contribute to the main search, but had the potential to enlighten us along the way.

If information becomes silo-based will we lose opportunities to brush up against possibilities? Yes, search engines bring up a dizzying array of possibilities, but how many pages do you generally click through? 2, 3, or 4? How many times have you clicked through them all?

Will we give in to the temptation to retreat to our silos and wallow in the information that brings us the most pleasure, but perhaps blinds us to the everyday?

It’s our choice. We choose what to look at, what to read, and what to pursue. Does your silo still have a working door?

A client provided an interview to a local newspaper a few days ago. This reporter in question happens to be a summer intern for this particular publication, so lack of experience, as much as the industry itself contributed to the problem. Yesterday afternoon, my client called me with a bit of news that the published story reflected year-old data and pulled quotes out of context from a news story six months previous. Unfortunately, this story got picked up by the Associated Press and spread rapidly around the web and even made it into statewide circulation via local news radio.

For this particular client, data validity is the key to his success. So by reporting the wrong numbers, this reporter dealt a blow to my client’s reputation. I spent the afternoon contacting news organizations that had posted the AP story, trying to get the correct information into the stream. What proved most frustrating was a call to the editor of the paper who published the original story.

He initially claimed that if those facts appeared in the story, then my client must of said them. He backed off from his claim once we made it clear that we could provide the original sources and show that the reporter had knowingly (whether through laziness or incompentence) used old data.

The most frustrating aspect was how difficult it was to get my facts into the stream. While some sites offered the option to comment on the story, others required a long search through contact information. Some even required that I register before I could submit a query via email. It’s worth noting that not all of these sites with questionable contact functionality belonged to newspapers. Several perpetrators were TV stations.

So, what’s the catch-22 for newspapers? The option for feedback and providing clarification to a story is almost nonexistent. Yes, blogging isn’t perfect either, but there’s at least the potential for me to interact with the author in real time. Once a story has gone to press, that’s it, because how many of you actually read the “correction” posted in the next edition? They’re usually in a tiny box, somewhere deep inside the paper.

Going forward, I’m recommending to all my clients that they build relationships with organizations that welcome and incorporate feedback. I’m not talking about “fixing” a story, but rather remaining open to revising inaccurate information or adding additional facts to improve the quality of a story.

This one-way conversation is crap. Newspapers made money for a long time by talking at people. Only now are they starting to realize that people will opt out completely if they can’t participate. If they can’t figure out how to make the conversation two-way, without requiring significant hoop jumping, the switch to other resources will be final.

Through the dice toss that is Amazon.com’s “books you might like,” I discovered Born to Run by Chris McDougall. Besides the excellent writing, McDougall tells an amazing story about the Tarahumara, a tribe living in the wilds of Mexico’s Copper Canyon area. While the book weaves together several stories about ultra running and the Tarahumara, the underlying thesis is that humans are born to run, that our bodies can take pleasure from moving fast. Miles weren’t meant to be slogged through, but reveled in.

Prior to reading Born to Run, I’d read a few review that said, “I’ll be surprised if you don’t want to get up and run after reading this book.” Slightly skeptical, because I’ve believed forever that some people are “runners” and the rest of us aren’t. I started to read.

I finished the book this morning, and the reviews were right: I wanted to run to experience the same pleasure McDougall described. This book is a reminder that running needn’t be about namebrand apparel, corporate sponsorships, and fame. Running can be for the sheer pleasure of experiencing a finely built machine doing what it’s designed to do.

How many things in our lives fit this definition? How many things that we did for pleasure have turned into work? Think about how we eat.

We’ve gone from sitting down to a meal, perhaps with the accompanient of conversation, to eating fast food in our cars. We define this practice as “convenient,” but we’ve turned a pleasure into a task to check of the list.

Exercise of any sort is all too often slotted into categories of physicial appearance. We don’t play anymore, we cardio. We don’t laugh from breathlessness, we huff with boredom. What are we becoming?

What if, instead of advocating health care for everyone, we advocated healthy living for everyone? What if instead of passing a cap and trade program, we made it easier for people to do things in their community under their own steam?

While technology in its many shapes and sizes has helped make life amazing in many ways, I think we often overlook simple solutions in favor of the complicated. We need to examine the motivations that our driving our actions with more care. Too much of what we do happens on autopilot. Sometimes that’s all we can manage, but it shouldn’t become the driving force behind our lives.

As I try to change my perspective about running, and even the way I run, I still may wake up some mornings with little desire to step foot outside. However, I do know that running has become less about the mileage, the time, and the scale and more about how I feel while I’m doing it.

We’re mourning the guy who introduced the moon walk, Thriller, and wore the title, “King of Pop” with aplomb, not the guy who adopted plastic surgery as a religion, faced charges of child molestation, and dangled a baby over a balcony. We seem to do this with every celebrity.

We mourn the Farrah Fawcett in the red swimsuit, not the Farrah Fawcett who appeared incoherent on David Lettermen. We want our stars, our heroes, to stay strong, to stay happy, to stay admirable. Sadly, they’re all-too-humanness makes them vulnerable to the same ills that plague us all. So when they fall, we push them aside until we’re given the opportunity to place them on the pedestal that death provides.

Even more intriguing, why does it take death for us to celebrate what we perceive as amazing in a person? As of this morning, 12 Jackson songs were sitting in Amazon’s top 25 MP3 downloads. For several songs, it’s the first day they’ve been in the top 100, let alone top 25. Why did we wait until now to celebrate the talent?

Our relationship with celebrity has always been complex. If we’re honest, we can acknowledge that our very fickleness can and has been the undoing of more than one star. As Oscar Wilde put it, “The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.”

At some point, the deaths of celebrities drop out of the news cycle, and we forget until the next time we’re informed someone from the past is no more. Perhaps stars would prefer more understanding from us now versus our adulation when they’re aren’t around to appreciate it.

In my case, I think that’s why I’m hesitant to meet new people. While I’ve met many wonderful people, I’ve met as many, if not more, who’ve failed to meet my expectations. How we chose to handle the results of our expectations says something about who we are, too. If I swore to never meet anyone new again, I’ve allowed my dashed hopes to carry too much weight. If I entered every situation with the goal of having a perfect experience, it’s a level few if any can achieve.

At this point, I turn to pragmatism, one of the unsexiest ways to view the world. While I hope the people I meet will also meet my expectations, I’m also pragmatic enough to recognize that not everyone will. Maybe this statement is too obvious, but I think it’s one we still overlook.

In politics, for instance, I wish there was a Pragmatic party, one that didn’t identify as liberal or conservative. The goal of this party’s members is to reach the best decision given the current information and situation on hand. Take the current debate over health insurance. We know millions of people don’t have insurance. One side argues that a single payer system is the only solution. The other side argues that the market takes care of itself. Both sides can make the case that their opponent’s solution has weaknesses. Thus, the need for pragmatism.

Adopting extreme positions for the sake of being extreme accomplishes nothing of value. Did the three men who shot down a doctor, a security guard, and a military recruit accomplish anything other than the fulfillment of their sick objectives?

We’re watching firsthand how people respond to extremes in Iran. Imagine what Iran would look like if a run-off election was the original result of last week’s election. I doubt that protests would have reached current levels because it was a more realistic expectation that they’re would be a run-off between the current president and another candidate versus a blow out.

Managing expectations is an underrated skill that will only increase in value as we try to manuever through a life filled with ever more expectations. Whether it’s people or the latest gizmo, we’re fools if we fail to understand the role and power of expectations, for better or for worse.

• No support teams: Despite the rule, one such car was labeled clearly as a support vehicle with large letters on three windows. The car continued to follow along with racers even when it became clear the  car was interfering with racers.
• No bikes on the course: Speaking from firsthand experience, there’s a reason why this rule exists. Slowing down to go through a water station, I didn’t realize that a bike was behind me. A shout to look out was my only warning, and I didn’t realize the warning applied to me (no eyes in the back of my head). Luckily, only the handlebars clipped my side.

I’m not a natural rule follower for the sake of appearances. Rules need to make sense. However, few things frustrate me more than people who believe the rules apply to everyone but them.

What happens if everyone takes the same approach? What if we use the little things as a way to segue to bigger rule breaking? Consider what happened to the economy during the last few months. How many of those negative events can be traced to people breaking the rules?

It’s Not About the Rules

Silly rules abound. Senseless rules confine. Rules are not automatically good or always needed. Rules aimed at the individual in an individual setting can often be questioned or challenged with little risk to others. For instance, if you live in a state with a seat belt law, you may challenge that rule by not wearing your seat belt. Not following this rule puts only you at  risk.

When rules are related to groups, there’s a problem. While you may choose to not wear your seat belt, if you choose to run a stop sign, you’re risking another’s well being.

The rules of my race, and their necessity, can be debated. However, when we engage in optional activities, I think we’re giving up our right to ignore the rules at will. What if every racer, all 300+ in this instance, had a support car? That’s 300+ cars on the race course. We couldn’t run the race because cars would fill the entire route.

Most of the time, the rules apply to you. You are not the exception. Why is this concept so difficult for people to grasp, to accept?