10 Year Plan: Anything Worth Doing Will Be Hard

Yesterday I wrote out the 6 core beliefs that I'm trying to focus the next 10 years of my life around.  Here they are:

1. Anything worth doing will be hard.
2. Do one thing at a time and one thing only.
3. The most important people in my life are the most important thing in my life.
4. Never let fear dictate anything.
5. Money is a tool.
6. Billionaire moments are everywhere.

The first on my list: Anything worth doing is hard.

You do only live once, and I want that life to count  I've always aspired to live an exceptional life and do exceptional things.  That's why I started this blog way-back-when in the first place.

The problem with being exceptional is this: it's hard.  Even my mundane, New Years Eve-like, goals take work.  Getting in shape, blogging regularly, and saving more money aren't particularly exceptional, and those aren't easy!

Then I think about some of the bigger ambitions I've aspired to over the years: Starting a non-profit or social enterprise that changes the world.  Being a life changing teacher.  Writing a book.  Those are extremely difficult to do. 

It makes sense, if it were easy to do exceptional things, everyone would do them.  We'd all be Mark Zuckerburgs running around starting social media empires.  By it's definition, an exceptional life is different than normal.  Everyone wants to be great, famous, recognized, etc.  But the majority of us, myself foremost, don't want to put in the amount of work necessary to achieve exceptionality.  We take the path of least resistance.  Why work hard to be a great writer, artist, athlete, what-have-you when something as easy as a sex tape can get you your 15 minutes of fame.  Or in my case, why work hard when you can watch Family Guy on Netflix when you get tired.

Exceptional people are weird,in a good way.   They have the discipline to do what is necessary to achieve their goals.  Without a doubt, I have not been exceptional in anyway at anything in the first 30 years of my life.  I have an assorted set of skills ranging from the decent (Being able to teach 7th graders about Ancient Rome), to the awful (golf).  There is nothing that I have devoted myself to being exceptional at, with the possible exception of Halo back in college.  

In the next 10 years of my life, I plan to change that.

10 Year Life Plan: The Long Term vs Short Term View of Life

The age of 30 has given me a little longer view of life.  Until recently, the "future" seemed distant and hazy.  The age 30 itself seemed old and scary.  I felt an urgency to do things now, and lived my life accordingly.

In some ways that's good, as I've certainly experienced a wide variety of things.  Between the ages of 19 and 23 I started a band, started a business, and lived overseas.  None lasted longer than a year, though

As a member of the instant gratification generation has brought some predictably bad results too.  Take financially, where rather than taking the slow and steady route, I've bounced around some get rich quick ideas ranging from the idiotic (I'll count cards in blackjack just like the MIT guys), to the arrogant (I can play the stock market like Bradley Cooper in Limitless!).  All have been expensive.

Recently a 70 year old relative came to visit.  You never have guessed he was 70.  He is mobile, active, and strong.  He just retired, and talks about all of his life's ambitions.  I had him pegged in the early 60's, until I found out otherwise.  He got me thinking, if all goes well, I have at least 40 good years left!  Then I asked myself this question: 

Knowing what I know now, and starting from where I am now, what do I want to do in 40 years?

*Now of course "if all goes well" is a pretty major caveat. I just watched Titanic, so I won't tempt fate and presume anything past today.  

"Unsinkable, eh? Mwahaha"

As I tried to answer that question, I was surprised that I couldn't.  At all.  The only answers I had were incredibly generic:  "Have kids" and "Be a billionaire!" 

Looking at my life more closely though, that doesn't surprise me.  I don't have direction or a plan, and instead have momentum from living day to day.  At age 23 I became a teacher, and have kept with it because I love it.  At age 26 I moved into a house, because I could.  At age 29, I found my wonderful girlfriend because I finally got the courage to talk to her after chickening out for over a year (true story).

Frankly, I think it is and was OK for me to not know everything I want out of life.  I don't want to live off some script.  Many of the best friends and experiences I have in life have come from unplanned and unexpected circumstances.  And especially when I was younger it was important to find my place in the world, so to speak. 

Now that I'm 30, I've figured out a lot more about what I believe in and who I want to be.  I've laid out at 10 year plan for myself, organized on the following six beliefs about life:

1. Anything worth doing will be hard.
2. Do one thing at a time and one thing only.
3. The most important people in my life are the most important thing in life.
4. Never let fear dictate anything.
5. Money is a tool.
6. Billionaire moments are everywhere.

Over the next week I'll be explaining each, then I'll share my 10 year plan at the end.  

Fight Fate

Life is like a box of chocolates.  I will concede that.  It's also like a roller coaster.

Sometimes all the dominoes fall your way.  Your mortgage company mails you a substantial check.  Work is going great and you get recognition from your boss.  You find an amazing group of friends, and spend your nights and weekends happy and laughing.  Sometimes it feels like you just can't miss, and can do no wrong.

That was my week last week.  It got me thinking about my life.

I've had good spells that seemed to last months.  It can make you believe that the blue skies and sunshine will last forever. But like all good things, they came to an end.

Sometimes it all goes wrong.  Nothing goes right at work.  Great relationships blow up.  Your friends move away and you get lonely.  Expensive things break.  You stub your toe. Worse, more serious things happen.  When you're in a funk, it's hard to see an end to that dark tunnel as well.

The reality?  It all passes.  The good times and the bad times come and go, and often you'll have little say in the matter.  If life is dealing you a great hand, count your blessings and enjoy it.  Don't get arrogant or complacent.  It won't last forever.  If life has been rough, know that it will eventually pass.  Don't get depressed or despondent.  You'll start catching some breaks.

Through out it all, the good and the bad, the secret is to control what you can control.  Fight fate.  Determine who you want to be, and what you want out of life, and determine the best way to get there.  You'll still go through ups and downs, but you'll be heading in an upward direction.

Random Acts of Kindess

One of the awesome things about being a human being is our ability to absolutely make someone's day.  Many of us don't utilize this power we have, we very naturally tend to focus on ourselves for most of our waking hours.  My daily thought pattern from waking to sleeping is often something like this:

"I'm tired."
"I'm hungry."
"I'm late."
"I'm busy."
"I'm tired."
"I'm hungry."
"I want to watch the Walking Dead."
"I'm tired."

Essentially, other than struggling to get to work on time and wanting to watch a TV show, I have the same impulses of my dog.  There is a lot of "I" in my life.

To combat my natural selfishness, I decided recently to go out of my way to perpetrate Random Acts of Kindness as I went about my school day.  A list of my deeds would be boring, and a little self serving.  I can tell you though, there is great joy in brightening in someone's day, and ample opportunity in the school setting.  Sometimes all it takes is a smile or a compliment.  Sometimes it takes more.

So far my tale is nothing special (my blog rarely is), but there is a cool twist.  Randomly in discussion with a few 8th graders, they liked the idea, and it led to the formation of the R.A.K. (Random Act of Kindness) Club.  We established the criteria for a Random Act of Kindness as this.  The act must be:

• Genuine
• Meaningful
• Unexpected

Members got points for each R.A.K. that met the criteria.  Soon we started holding meetings, scheming of grand R.A.K's while eating cookies and drinking tea.  The club ballooned into two thirds of my eighth grade class and we are holding a mass "Random Act of Kindness" this Saturday.

I have to say, appealing to our better sides is refreshing.  Human beings do have a unique capacity for altruism that is mind boggling  Kids come up to me every period of every day telling about their R.A.K's.  8th graders have done the dishes randomly for their parents, they've carried books for other students, played volleyball at recess with the younger kids and more.   I feel like this "club" has changed the whole demeanor of the entire class for the better. 

The moral of the story?  Awesomeness is in us all.  And the potential to do amazing things is all around us, we just have to look for it.  

Netflix Comes Through: Titanic the Movie Edition

Unless this is a cruel April Fool's joke, Netflix has returned Titanic to its line up.  The time couldn't be better.  As I wrote two days ago, I recently attended a lavish recreation of the last first class dinner on the Titanic.

The night before the dinner, we had all sat down to watch Titanic the movie,  If you are my age (30) you probably remember it coming out in middle school.  You probably saw it once, or twice, or if you're like my dad, 12 times (no joke).  For all the "I'm the king of the world!" silliness, it's actually a pretty good movie.  Like I said earlier, the juxtaposition of all those leaders of industry, luxuriously sailing on their unsinkable ship, sinking into the ocean is very compelling.

I noticed another thing watching the movie: the Part.  Worn by the insufferable aristocrat Billy Zane:

"Isn't it beautiful Rose?  It's as if Moses himself parted it."

And the charming rapscallion Leonardo Dicaprio:

"I'm too free spirited cut my hair"

The Part definitely was in style in the late 90's.  I wore it myself, though I never remember any girls like Kate Winslet being attracted to it.

My favorite scene, without a doubt, is when the guy sees the iceberg that will doom the ship and yells, "Iceberg!  Right ahead!" in this awesome British accent.  I've tried recreating that accent thousands of times without success.  To get to that scene, you have to suffer through most of the Jack and Rose romance.  And our DVD froze right after the infamous "Let me take off my clothes so you can draw me" scene, and right before the "Lets fog up the windows in the backseat of a car" scene.  Both of those scenes, incidentally, had a profound impact on my understanding of human sexuality in middle school.

Alas, the DVD froze.  I never got to hear the guy yell "Iceberg!  Right ahead!" so I had to say it out loud a half dozen times and then Youtube it a half dozen more.  So thanks Netflix, for putting Titanic back online.

When I Was a Kid: Music Edition

When I was a kid my mom would play Henry Mancini's Pink Panther album when I would go to bed.  I was  a restless sleeper, with an overactive imagination and for whatever reason those familiar sounds put the monsters and ghouls outside my window to sleep for the night.

I had forgotten all of this until Pandora gave me "Moon River," which I'm fairly certain was on that same album.  And then it all came back to me.  Funny how somewhere in my brain all those memories were locked away, until that song came and triggered them.  And then, like it was yesterday, I could visualize laying in my bed, looking out my door, snuggling with my cat Figaro as the music played.

Music is weird like that.  Music is as mysterious as the ocean depths.  How and why a series of sound waves resonating at certain frequencies can stir the human soul and trigger such long lost memories is far beyond my understanding.  I believe we are wired for music, for whatever reason.  And I'm glad some things in the world are still mysterious.

Would You Rather: Titanic Edition

I just returned from the Titanic Dinner, an epic recreation of the first class meal served on the night the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg and went down.  That 13 course dinner in-and-of-itself deserves a blog post, but I don't believe my palette is so well defined as to do it justice.  If I may sum up: I ate a lot, and had a great time.

Part of the fun is museum that accompanies the dinner.  The story of the Titanic resonates, even without Jack and Rose.  That ship epitomized an age of wealth and optimism.  It embodied the idea that man could control and shape their own destiny, that the old rules didn't apply.  Hence: the unsinkable ship.

Ultimately though, its a story of man's limitations and mortality, and a warning against hubris. (Spoilers ahead)   Of course, the Titanic did sink.  And while a million fascinating stories survive from that fateful night, the tale of Bruce Ismay fascinates me.

A man of impeccable mustache

Bruce was the managing director of the White Star Line.  He inherited his daddy's company, and by all accounts did quite well.  The Titanic was his dream child, a ship of unparallelled size and luxury that would dwarf the Lusitania and Mauretania of the rival Cunard Line to shame.  Indeed, many witnesses recount him urging the Titanic's captain to increase his speed, in hopes of notching a record trans-Atlantic crossing time.

When the Titanic hit that iceberg, Bruce encountered a difficult dilemma.  You're a rich gentleman in the prime of your life.  There aren't enough lifeboats for everybody.  What do you do?

Use your status and power to secure yourself a seat, knowing you'll forever be called a coward?

Or perish, sacrificing your life that women and children might live, and burnish your legacy for all eternity?

Some, like billionare Benjamin Guggenheim handled death with surprising grace.  Guggenheim put on his formal dinner attire to meet death like a gentleman, saying "No woman shall be left aboard this ship because Ben Guggenheim was a coward."

Same goes for Isidor Straus, of Macy's Department store fame.  When offered a seat on a lifeboat next to his wife, he firmly refused.  His wife then refused her seat saying "as we lived, so we will die, together."

John Jacob Astor, the richest man on board, asked for a seat and was refused.

And Bruce?  Bruce of the too-few-lifeboats and the full-speed-ahead-damn-the-icebergs?  Bruce got in.a lifeboat, the highest ranking White Star official to survive.  Some say he helped load women for an hour before taking a seat.  Some say he dressed like a woman to secure himself a seat.  The truth is likely in between.  What is for certain is this: Bruce Ismay became a villain in the American and British press.

They labelled him a coward.  They called him a brute.  His suffered cartoons and poetry, editorials and articles, all mocking his manhood.  And ridiculed and ashamed, he lived 25 years longer than all the other men I mentioned, dying finally in 1937.

So if I could ask any of those dead men anything, I'd ask, would you want to trade places with one another?  Would Ben Guggenheim trade places with Bruce Ismay?  Would Bruce trade places with Ben?

If we all must die, should one not cling to desperately to life and choose to die well?  If life is short and finite, does how people remember us after we're gone matter?  Would you pay for 25 years more of life with shame and ridicule worldwide?