Author: morningrunguys

Friends

/ morningrunguys / Leave a comment

Brad and John

For some reason I’ve been thinking a lot about friends this week. Perhaps it is because I’m longing for some time with two of my best friends who I haven’t seen in awhile. It might be because I haven’t been on the road with my colleague Brad (above), who has become a good friend as well as a business associate. Maybe it is because this week I got to grab a couple of beers with some guys here in Charlotte that I don’t get to see as often as I’d like, but enjoy spending time with very much and wish I could develop deeper friendship with. Whatever the reason, friends and friendship have been on my mind a lot lately.

I don’t really have a lot of friends. I don’t know if I’m different than a lot of people in this regard, but it feels like it. I’m not talking about Facebook friends or good acquaintances. I’m talking about real, true, love hanging out with and can share life with friends. My wife is my best friend, no contest. After that, I have 2 guys who I’ve shared everything in life with for over 20 years who know me better than anyone on the planet (maybe even better than my wife). From there, there is really only one more circle for me and there are probably 8-10 people in that circle and I call them friends. These are the people I WISH I could spend more time with, I make time to see as much as possible, and who can pick up a conversation the moment we’re together like we just spent all day together yesterday. These are the people I vacation with, travel with, and share free time with. These are the people I call, text, and email on a regular basis. These are friends.

Sometimes I feel bad about not having a bunch of friends. Sometimes I feel bad about not really wanting any new friends. Sure, relationships come and go in life and during certain seasons we become close with people because of work, or our kids, or being neighbors, or any number of reasons. Rarely for me, however, do these circumstantial ‘friends’ morph into true friendships, and usually, that is ok with me. But I still sometimes feel bad about not developing closer friendships.

There is a quote by Henry David Thoreau that my wife loves and is starting to grow on me:

“The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.”
                                                                                              – Henry David Thoreau

I know why Jessi loves it; as a military brat living all over the U.S. and internationally growing up, it was mostly her and her parents. As an only child, she was the only one that had to decide what to do or where to go and she went. Now that we have our own kids, the “waiting until that other is ready” part is a reality we can’t escape. But we still travel light and do things on our own and that allows us to “start today” more often than not. We don’t do elaborate group outings and multi-family vacations much, our kids aren’t involved in the typically ‘coordinated’ sports activities, and we don’t plan every minute of every weekend. So for us, it has become “a family that goes alone can start today.” I’m beginning to place a lot of value on this trait of our family. We have had some pretty neat experiences when we’ve decided on a whim to head out on an adventure. It has created a flexible, albeit somewhat isolated, way of doing life.

Now I’m an extrovert, through and through, so I don’t foresee a day when I become a hermit. As I grow older, however, I recognize more than ever that it is true friendship, with a few that you care about, that is really valuable. So, I will continue to commit and invest in those few friends that I have. And I may even be more open to the development of new friendships as they come up. For you see, while I may not see them as much as I’d like, I know that what A.A. Milne wrote in Winnie the Pooh is true…

“Friendship,” said Christopher Robin, “is a very comforting thing to have.”

Selling Widgets

/ morningrunguys / Leave a comment

Tim

by Dr. Jason Pittser, Fellow Traveler on the Path of Simplicity and Awareness

This past Saturday afternoon a great friend and I, along with our wives, were at a downtown Nashville honky-tonk. It was the typical downtown Nashville atmosphere – people from all over, great live music, drinks flowing. Interacting with the crowd between songs, the lead guitar player (above) asked if anyone was in Nashville on business, “trying to learn how to sell more widgets.” My friend and I laughed and agreed that to a man who plays guitar for a living, most of the business world must look like a chaotic mess of people rushing around trying to sell more widgets.

When you take a mindful look at it, selling widgets is exactly what many of us do in our professional lives. Some widgets are more important than others and some widget-selling is more meaningful. But when you boil it down, it is still selling widgets. My friend is a contractor and I’m an optometrist. Having shelter and being able to see are important, but custom homes and high-end eyewear are nothing more than widgets. Gregg Popovich, head coach of the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs, holds the NBA record for most consecutive winning seasons and is one of only five coaches in NBA history to win five or more championships. In an era when professional sports franchises change head coaches on a whim, he just finished his 19th season as the Spurs head coach. P. J. Carlesimo, one of Popovich’s former longtime assistant coaches, was asked what has made Popovich so successful for so long. His first response? “He has a lot of interests outside the game of basketball.” Before his team played an Elite Eight game in the 2015 NCAA Division 1 Men’s Basketball Championship Tournament, Gonzaga coach Mark Few was asked if a win and a trip to the Final Four would validate him and cement his legacy. He responded, “As long as I can look into the eyes of my wife and children and see that I’m okay, that’s all the validation I need.” Two of the most successful coaches in the game seem to have an awareness that coaching basketball for millions of dollars, on some level, is nothing more than selling widgets.

What occupies much of our attention in our personal lives amounts to selling widgets as well. Ask the parent of a terminally ill child how important it is to get your child onto the best youth sports team or into the best private school, and I bet you’ll hear something similar to selling widgets. Arguing about what religious denomination has the right formula to get you into Heaven? Selling widgets. Wearing the right clothes or driving the right vehicle? Selling widgets. Getting into a back and forth about politics? I’m not sure that even reaches the level of selling widgets.

Widgets matter and selling them matters. Both may improve our life situation, and as in all things, we should always sell widgets to the best of our ability. Widgets aren’t good or bad, and neither is selling them. What is bad is losing awareness that we are merely selling widgets. And contrary to what our unobserved thinking tells us, maintaining an awareness that we are simply selling widgets makes us better at many things – including selling widgets.

Walk Away

/ morningrunguys / Leave a comment

emptytable

You’re obese.

This wasn’t a phrase I ever imagined someone saying to me, but this past Friday when I went to the doctor for my annual physical, that is exactly what he told me.

I was a college athlete, have been active and athletic my entire life. I ran a marathon less than 2 years ago for God’s sake. How in the world could I be obese? Pretty easily, actually. Even though I’m 6 foot, 3 inches and have always had a big, broad frame (ask my mom how broad my shoulders were when I was born), I’m approaching 40 years old and lifestyle is catching up with me. The late night dinners on the road, the rich meals accompanied by richer alcohol with clients, the relaxing on the porch on a Saturday afternoon while the ribs slow cook and a six pack disappears, the seconds and thirds that I routinely take…it is all making me obese.

The doctor could obviously tell I was shocked when he said the words, so he quickly followed up by saying:

John, fixing this problem is easy, you need to walk away from food and drink sooner than you do now.

Still staring blankly back at him, I suppose he thought I needed a little more instruction:

I can tell you’re exercising and that is great – your blood pressure (112/80) and your resting heart rate (59) tell us that your heart is healthy and that is from the running. Here’s the thing, exercise doesn’t do much for weight control. Managing your weight is all about the amount of calories you consume each day, and what makes up those calories. This is where you have to make a change.”

Once the initial shock wore off, we had a serious conversation. Mostly about stuff I already knew, but needed a professional to tell me to sink in. My Body Mass Index (BMI) is 31 at 257 pounds and 6’3″ tall. A BMI of 25-30 is normal, under 25 is healthy, over 30 is obese. That, combined with a look at the belly fat around my mid-section, were all the doctor needed to see. His prescription was this…

…this will be simple, but not easy: reduce your caloric intake by 500 calories a day and you’ll lose a pound a week. Drop it by 1,000 a day and you’ll be at the 220 lbs you should be at by your 40th birthday.

Ouch. How in the world am I going to do that? Do I even want to do that? Well, I don’t WANT TO, but I know that I need to make this change. The doctor had been through this before (40% of Americans between the ages of 40-59 are obese), so he suggested that I start tracking my calories with the MyFitness Pal App. It is scary how much information about the food we eat is in there, and it does make you stop and think. It estimated that my diet last week was well over 3,000 calories per day. So my target is 2,000 calories per day and high quality calories as much as possible (protein, natural sugars from fruit, fiber, etc). When you start to track the food you eat, you start to have decisions to make if you’re trying to stay under 2,000 calories per day. The waffles with butter and syrup I had this morning were about 350 calories, and 2 chicken enchiladas at lunch would have been 1,000 calories, so I chose 1 instead. We had a delicious dinner of grilled chicken, spaghetti with marinara, and a side salad last night for dinner (750 calories with a piece of bread), but the Malbec was 125 calories per glass. Needless to say, it has been a wake up call. I love to eat and having some wine or beer while I cook is a part of the experience I enjoy. Eating is an experience for me and when I’m enjoying a good meal, I like it to last as long as possible. As I’ve started tracking, it is quickly obvious that portions are important and that hours of drinking before or after a meal are just worthless calories that have made me obese. Period. Like the doctor said – simple solution, not easy to do.

If you happen to read this, and you are my friend, you will ask me about how I’m doing. I’ve told my wife I want her to check on me and help keep me accountable. I’m going to send this to the 2-3 coworkers that I travel with the most. I hope my close friends and family will read it and ask if I’m staying with my 2,000 calorie per day limit. That is the only way I’m going to get there. I’ll continue to run (maybe an extra day each week to help the process along), and I’ll make sure that our family is outside and active as much as possible. But that can only have a limited effect. 2,000 calories a day will get me to 220 lbs by my 40th birthday on October 7, 2015. I haven’t weighed that since I was 22 years old, and it would be a great accomplishment for me personally. I’m going to remove myself from that 40% statistic because it is important to me, good for my family, and because I don’t want to be obese. All it takes is to walk away from the table a little sooner than I used to.

Balance

/ morningrunguys / 1 Comment

There is a quote that is attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson that reads:

“Moderation in all things, especially moderation.”

Reading or hearing this quote always makes me stop and pause to think about the balance in my own life. While I think it is important, and I strive for, moderation in my life, I also find value in moments of excess. I suppose it all depends on where you expend your excess that determines the value of it to your life. Balance is most important when you overextend yourself in one way or another and need to physically or emotionally ‘land on your feet.’

I am fortunate that some days my work schedule allows me to go for a morning run, sit down with a cup of coffee, read or reflect, maybe write a little and start my ‘work day’ pretty much whenever I’d like to start it. Other times I’m racing from the bed to the shower to the airport to a meeting and the day seems to start and end at breakneck pace. The thing that always allows me to land on my feet when I’ve overextended myself with a series of those breakneck days is balance. Balance emotionally, physically, relationally, and spiritually.

On a normal day, home or on the road, I don’t have time for both a morning workout and morning reflection and solitude. What I have chosen to do is balance those things. Yesterday after I walked the kids to the bus stop I went for a 3 mile run and then came home, ate breakfast, showered and started my day. I was at the computer working at 8:30a. This morning after the bus stop I came back home, ate breakfast, read, prayed, and journaled for 40 minutes and started my day. I was at the computer working at 8:30a. I didn’t feel guilty yesterday for not having time for reflection. I didn’t feel guilty this morning for not having time for a run. I am trying to create a balance in my life so that next week when I’m flying from coast to coast with presentations, client meetings and spending days full of work and craziness that I land on my feet and don’t fall over (emotionally or physically).

Don’t get me wrong…if someone was going to pay me to structure my day exactly as I’d like it, I’d have time for a run and reflection every single day. But that isn’t in the cards in this stage of life for me so rather than throw my hands up in frustration that I can’t be more diligent to run 5 days a week or getting down on myself because I only make time to pray and journal 2-3 times a week, I just try for balance. When I have that balance, I truly can achieve moderation in all things, including moderation.

Rainy Day Relax

/ morningrunguys / Leave a comment

0425150915_resized

It’s a Saturday and it is raining.

Normally, I like to get out and about on Saturday – go for a run, hit the farmer’s market, maybe go for a bike ride with the family, do a little yard work. Today is going to be a rainy day relax, and I think I’m just fine with that.

Spring rain in the Southeast is a pretty common thing. It refreshes the soil that has cooled over the winter. It has an amazing ability to make brown things green. It nourishes my lawn and trees so that I can almost see the grass grow. It fills the lakes and streams so that people, animals, and plants can use them and enjoy them. Rain has a rejuvenating purpose for the earth.

Rainy days should have a rejuvenating purpose for us humans as well. I’m sure there are going to be a lot of frustrations today at the little league baseball diamonds from parents suffering through rain outs and some fun times at outdoor events like The Queens Cup might get dampened. Rain should be a reminder to us humans, however, that we need to slow down, sit and relax, and allow that time to re-energize us. Even if you don’t get rain to force you to, it is a good idea to build some ‘margins’ into your week. Allow your mind to clear itself, allow your body to have some waking rest, and spend some time in conversation or just being in the same space with those you care about.

I hope you get some rainy day relax time this weekend or sometime soon. For me, I’ll be getting the view above for a couple of hours today – enjoying a cup of coffee and a couple of books while I look out the front window and watch the rain refresh my grass so I can see it grow. Here’s to a relaxing Saturday.

Distracted by ME

/ morningrunguys / 2 Comments

ME

There are all sorts of distractions in this world. I can only imagine the new distractions that will be around by the time my children become working adults. Regardless of what new technology or work expectations they may have in 10-15 years, however, I’m certain that the “Distraction of ME” will still be there.

The Distraction of ME is a selfishness and self-centeredness that I struggle with a lot. It isn’t just being selfish with things or even with time. It is easy to want to spend time with my friends and family. No, it is worse than that because it is an obsession in my mind with my own story, my own problems, my own desires, my own fears, my own thoughts.

Here’s an example…you get to the gate at the airport for your flight (which I do regularly); as soon as they even mention your flight you’re up and jockeying for position so that you can get on the plane and get a spot for your carry-on in the overhead. Once you’ve finally sat down, the phone comes out and you get annoyed and bothered every time someone brushes you with their bag as they go down the aisle or a seat mate asks you to get up and turn your attention away from your precious phone for a few seconds (don’t they understand how important it is for you to respond to this email RIGHT NOW!?!). Now the flight is up and away and you can’t get any work done because there is a baby screaming right behind you and the flight attendants keep smashing your shoulder with the drink cart. You finally land and push and shove your way a few rows forward because YOUR connection is the most important and you can’t be late. The whole experience is all about ME. Despite the fact that the airport is packed with people and the plane is completely full, our own problems, needs, and concerns trump everything and the fact that no one else recognizes this becomes infuriating.

Here’s another way I get Distracted by ME…I’ve been working with a client for over a year, we’ve done the first few phases of work, but the real ‘good stuff’ of the project (read: part where I make the most money) hasn’t been completed. Every time we talk they’ve got some excuse as to why it is delayed and as soon as I start to hear them, I shut off and stop listening. I can’t understand how they don’t see that the finished product that will come from completing this project will totally change their organization for the better. How am I going to continue to explain to my boss that I’m still confident we’re going to do the project even though they keep putting it off – don’t they understand it hurts my credibility internally when I delay like this? Don’t they understand that I’m serious about not being able to meet their timelines if they don’t contract it this month? What is going to happen if this doesn’t close this quarter and we don’t hit our number? It doesn’t take long for the focus to shift from the client to ME. Who cares about why they are delaying, I need to get this deal done!

What I have found as I have practiced mindfulness is that I catch myself having these thoughts that are totally focused on ME. Observing that I’m having these thoughts allows me to push them away, thus shortening the Distraction of ME. It doesn’t necessarily stop them from creeping in, but instead of spending the entire plane ride consumed by my own needs, I can step back and realize that there are other people around me who have needs greater than mine.

What I want to do on a regular basis is spend more time thinking about others. Starting with my wife and kids, I want to dwell on the feelings and needs of those around me. It is my hope that if I can focus on thinking of others, my own junk will fade into the background and not become a distraction. This is hard. Today, I’m going to start by turning my thoughts to others FIRST and continue to recognize when the “ME” gets in the way. Recognition that the thoughts of ME are creeping in will help me eliminate it as a distraction much like you would turn off a ringing phone. I’m convinced that the less I’m distracted by ME, and focused on others, the better husband, dad, friend, co-worker, and servant I’ll be to those around me.

A Case for Downshifting

/ morningrunguys / 1 Comment

chair

I have an amazing job, which I love.

I have some really great clients who are passionate about what they do and some amazingly talented colleagues who are some of the most professional and fun people I’ve ever worked with in my life. I work hard, and I have fun working. Over the past 4 weeks I’ve been gone from home 12 nights and kicked off 5 new projects. But I’ve also had the opportunity to attend 2 Division 1 college basketball games, 2 MLS Soccer games, a NHL hockey game, and an NBA game during that same stretch that were all ‘work related.’ It has been a blast, and I have been running at high speed for a month straight.

This morning, as I was sitting in my chair in my office (pictured above), enjoying a cup of coffee, reading, and reflecting I came across a quote from John Ortberg’s book Soul Keeping that really spoke to me:

“The main thing you bring home from work is not a paycheck. The main thing you bring home from work is a soul.”

Now, more than ever in my life, I feel like I’m bringing home soul from work. I am energized and inspired by the work I do and while the travel can be tiring, it is exciting and fun for me most of the time. I am engaged on some fun projects that stimulate my creativity. If I’m not careful, I can find myself WANTING to work so much that I can wear down and start to miss out on bringing home a healthy soul from work.

So I am going to downshift to a period of rest. This rest is not particularly because I’m exhausted or run down right now, but because it is the right and healthy thing to do. I’m not intending to lay around in my pajamas until noon for the next two weeks or sit cross legged in a dark room chanting “ohm.” Instead, I’m going to downshift. My motor has been revving pretty high for the past 4 weeks and serving me well. For the next two weeks, I’m going to slow down the engine and be more deliberate about both work and life. I’ll be in the office for the next 4 week days and I intend to be productive. I have things to do. But I’m not going to worrying about starting or ending at a certain time, I’m just going to do what I need to do and be done.

Then, next week, I’ll shift down again. At the end of the week, I’m taking the last two days off and taking the family camping with some good friends for a long weekend. For four days there will be no agendas, no meal times, no to do lists, and most importantly no cell phones with texts, emails, tweets, or Facebook posts to interrupt. We’ll enjoy the company of people we love and our kids will play with friends they’ve known their whole lives.

By the end of this stretch of down shifting, not only will I look forward to jumping back into work, but I will have relaxed my engine without strain. When most people take vacation, they spend the 2-3 days before the vacation trying to work like crazy and jam in 5 days of work into 3 so that they can feel better about taking the time off. They run their engine at its hottest, forcing their mind, body, and soul to work overtime in order to earn a cool down. The problem with this thinking is that much like an engine or our bodies after exercise, we need a cool down period or a downshift for the lowest gear to be effective. If you are racing down the interstate in fifth gear going 80 miles an hour, you can’t all of a sudden hit the clutch, shift down to first gear, and then release the clutch to go back to driving. If you’ve ever done this, you know that the screaming and grinding sounds your transmission makes are hideous and terrifying. So it is with you soul and your mind. You can’t expect to actually relax, slow down, and refresh your soul on vacation if you are working overtime and scrambling all over the place the night before you leave. You need a downshift period to truly see the benefit of the rest.

So if you need me for the next 5-6 days, I’ll probably be in my chair in the office catching up on reading my trade magazines or maybe responding to a few emails or sitting on a conference call or two. I may lounge around the house all weekend or go for a lazy bike ride with the kids for ice cream. In any case, I’ll be downshifting so that this time next week my soul will be fully present with family and friends and reaping the benefits of a truly re-charging time.

And So It Goes

/ morningrunguys / 1 Comment

There is a song by Billy Joel called “And So It Goes” that came on the radio this morning while I was getting ready for the day. It particularly stood out to me this morning because right before it there was a rocking song with guitar licks and drum solos…and right after it there was a melancholy love song with harmonies and orchestra (I was listening to Pandora).

If you’ve never heard the song, click on the link above and have a listen. It is Billy Joel and his piano. Just a voice and the piano telling a story of a man and his partner, their life together, their moments of silence and a recognition that they are the only ones that truly understand each other simply because of their time together. It isn’t the words so much that resonated with me today, but the tone of the song; particularly in contrast to the songs before and after it.

Life seems to me to be mostly simple songs with our voice and a piano. We all have rocking guitar song moments when we go on vacation or our kids do something fantastic or we have that great night out with friends. We always make sure to get those rocking moments out on social media! We also all have melancholy love song moments when important people in our lives go through pain or life deals us a tough circumstance. We might tell a few close friends about these and trooper on. However, most of our lives are spent in our mundane daily tasks, going through life with our partners, family, and friends who understand us simply because of our time together.

Today I’m trying to relish these “And So It Goes” moments more. I’m staring out the window of my office this morning at a grey sky, thankful for a routine morning run after getting the kids off to school. I’m looking at my to do list for the day knowing that there is work to be done and that it is meaningful and enjoyable. I’m thinking about basketball practice tonight and smiling about the fact that I still get to engage with kids in a game I love. It is just a quiet piano solo day, but it can be a beautiful day.

My life will soon have some rocking guitar songs and I’ll be sure to post those to social media for all to see. Life will probably have some melancholy songs in the near future too and I’ll need my friends and family most during those times. But today, life just has a routine Wednesday for me. And So It Goes…

Checklists

/ morningrunguys / 1 Comment

planner2

I’m a checklist guy. This week, I realized that sometimes I need to have things on my list that are easy to accomplish for the emotional uplift of completing tasks…so I did that. And then I got to thinking; why do I do that?

When I graduated from college, my parents gave me a day planner from Franklin Covey. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Stephen Covey, or the organization he founded, they are the source of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which has been my organizational guidebook for over 20 years. Since that graduation gift, I’ve used a Franklin Planner every single year in every single professional environment, using every available format that Franklin has offered. I’m now using a custom bound, leather covered 2015 planner that you see above.

What hasn’t changed is the system that I use to set priorities for my day and week, which comes directly from 7 Habits.

First, I work through things that are URGENT and IMPORTANT. These usually don’t even make it on to paper, other than maybe to note that I did them. In this category are things like a client request that is time sensitive for them to execute a contract, or a review of an internal document that our team is working on today. These things might include confirmation of an appointment or a note to a friend or client.

Second, and where I spend the most time, are items that are IMPORTANT but NOT URGENT. I typically keep this as a weekly list, that is accompanied by notes, because they are often projects that are going to take larger amounts of my time or have multiple steps. I often work on these in several blocks during the week. In this bucket falls things like building proposals, reviewing final deliverables on a project before a client sees them, and preparing in person presentations.

The third most important set of things, and the one that receives the most ‘daily checklist’ real estate in my planner are the URGENT but NOT IMPORTANT. These tasks are things that I might forget to do if I didn’t write them down, but that are time sensitive. Tasks such as booking travel (which gets expensive if not done urgently), inputing data into our business tracking software, and personal errands that need to be done at a certain time fall into this bucket. Today’s list included finalizing details of a meeting schedule for later in the week, booking travel for a trip next week, and picking up birthday presents at the bike store (tomorrow is my daughter’s bday). These are the ones that send relief through my body when they get a check mark next to them!

Finally, the time suckers. NOT URGENT, NOT IMPORTANT tasks don’t ever get on paper. Not writing these things down, for me, makes them less of a temptation to cut into time better spent on valuable personal or professional pursuits. In the long list of things in this category you’ll find: shop online, check Facebook or Twitter, clean up my email inbox, and check last night’s scores. That isn’t to say these never take up time in my day; I just don’t give them the authority in my life that comes with being written down in my planner.

So, why the planner and the checklists? I think when I reflect on it I find that it really is probably about three things: control, order, and goals. When you’re in sales, you don’t have a lot of control over your environment and knowing what I’m accomplishing and when gives me a sense of control I crave, reducing my desire to control other things in my life. I’m by nature someone who likes order, and so is my wife, which is why our kids’ closets are organized by item type and color. If there is one thing I know about myself above all others, it is that I’m a goal-oriented person. When I have goals in front of me, I stay in better focus on what I have to do TODAY to accomplish those goals. Having things on paper that are little, ‘mini-goals’ to accomplish keeps me plugging through the week and makes me feel satisfied at week’s end.

Time to go ship this computer back to the office – it’s on the list and needs to be checked because they need it there tomorrow!

My Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Be Patient?

/ morningrunguys / Leave a comment

Shades

Ever heard the song “Future’s So Bright?” The jist is that the future is so bright, I’ve gotta wear shades. It is your standard 80’s one hit wonder, but I love the song. As I sit here on a sunny Friday afternoon, this is a highly relevant song for me. My family and I are healthy and happy, we’re refinancing our house and saving 8 years’ worth of payments, we planned some fun spring trips this week, and I’ve got more business lined up than my team can handle. The future certainly IS bright!

The hard part for me on a day like today is to be patient. Staying in the present when there is excitement about the future is challenging. Staying in the moment, however, is paramount if that bright future is going to play out the way I want it to turn out. I’ve found that if I start allowing myself to live in the future, some unforeseen sadness creeps in or an expense that I wasn’t expecting shows up. Fun times in the future with friends don’t live up to expectations when I fixate on them for months, and business deals that I thought were “a lock” always seem to fall apart at the last minute whenever I squeeze too hard to get the contract.

So today I’m just going to enjoy the sunshine AND the bright future. I’m going to wear my shades and stay present with the people and opportunities that are right here with me now. The future will take care of itself if I’m patient enough to wait until it gets here.