I don’t try to piss people off. In fact, I’ll hold my tongue more often than not in order to avoid upsetting somebody even when I should say something. But a few years ago I made a comment that really upset my manager. We were talking about my future and his plans for my career. He saw potential and wanted to help me maximize it. The problem was that I didn’t want maximized.

During the course of the conversation, I made the comment that I really only needed $30,000 a year to survive and didn’t care so much about money beyond that. I was more interested in a job that let me spend time with my family than one that promised promotions and big money. Apparently, my comment sparked several debates with the upper managers and they threatened to let me go. Ironically, however, they promoted me and I became one of them.

His argument was that employees who didn’t feel pressured for financial reasons were a weakness. The company lacked the leverage and power to control them in a way that was best for business. Employees can’t say “no” to a request to work the weekend or to attend a week-long conference, right? Well, when they aren’t leveraged they can. Although I said yes most of the time, there were some no’s…because they didn’t have the control. I didn’t feel locked into my job and I knew I’d be fine without it.

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I loved summer as a kid; I dread it as a parent. At least the out of school part. Not because I don’t want the kids to have fun and get a break from school, it’s because they get so freakin’ bored and I feel responsible. I don’t remember being bored as a kid. Was I? It seems like my kids are constantly bored and I’m trying to figure out what I’m doing wrong as a parent.

I grew up in a small town surrounded by friends. There was hill after hill of Utah wilderness to explore right out of my front door. My kids live in the middle of suburbia and spend most of their time stuck indoors because of the rain and houses that fill the horizon in every direction. In addition, I don’t know many of my neighbors…there aren’t five kids of assorted ages in almost every house in the neighborhood. As a kid, I played constantly…basketball, football, rode bikes in the hills, had dirt clod wars, hunted with bb guns, and even some Dungeons and Dragons. Sometimes we’d even pack up supplies and as many as ten kids (ages 6-13) would hike several miles out of town, make a fire, cook dinner, and sleep under the stars. Just us kids.

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I stumbled across this article about prehistoric man and it caught my imagination. The theory is that 70,000 years ago humankind almost ended. After 100,000 years of living in small tribes, harsh conditions cut our numbers to a mere 2,000. We declared ourselves a critically endangered species. The postulate is that we then united, ended the stone age, and have ballooned to a super race of 6.6 billion.

I want to know the rest of the story…to the point that my mind starts to create it. Perhaps one of the most charismatic, intelligent, and innovative human beings ever to walk this earth will never be known. We love stories about heroes who have saved the world…just look at our movies, novels, and legends. But outside of theology, there hasn’t ever been one soul responsible for saving the world from destruction. No Superman, James Bond, or Austin Powers. No one person can take credit for saving us all…right?

What if 70,000 years ago a sole man or woman inspired a people beaten by poverty, hunger, disease, and war to radically change their ideals. This person not only introduced complex unorthodox solutions to our demoralized ancestors, he or she also organized and rallied them to action. This hero inspired confidence like rain brings life to the desert, and we flourished and changed. On the brink of destruction, we altered our course and pushed into uncharted territory. Now look at us…maybe he or she is turning in their grave.

At the very least, it makes for an interesting story. I’ll put it on the list of novels that I’d like to someday write…

Harry Gorman not only had one of the best jobs I can imagine, he lived in the neighborhood of my dreams. Harry, Martha (his wife), and Captain (their dog) lived for many years in the African Bush. He was the caretaker on a large plot of land smack dab in the middle of Sabi Sands, one of the private game reserves in the Kruger National Park. But instead of a game reserve, this rugged landscape was the private retreat for a wealthy Australian who occasionally came and stayed in his modest home overlooking the savanna. The Gorman’s lived a mile or so away in their own simple, yet cozy, home.

Harry invited me on several occasions to come and stay in his guesthouse, a small rondoval a stones throw from his front door (in the picture). Days with Harry were filled with simple African meals cooked by his wife, drives looking for game in his landrover, and long conversations under the stars as lions roared in the distance. I would say this is my favorite place in the world, but it only lives in memory. Cancer took the Australian and his kids sold the land, a commercial outfit came in and built luxury accommodations to attract tourists, and Martha passed away. The last I heard of Harry was in a letter from his daughter. He wasn’t doing well and living in a rest home somewhere in Johannesburg. That was several years ago.

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Molly was a good dog and as you can see, well loved. We didn’t expect her to make it through the night and the kids were saying goodbye. Although this was several years ago, I’ve been thinking about pain today. I made the mistake of watching the video on the news of the eight teenagers that beat up a girl and video taped it. I couldn’t finish it. How can people be so cruel? This type of things weighs me down. In addition, two people I care about are in a lot of emotional pain right now and I hurt for both of them. At least that type doesn’t weigh me down like the other example. Pain caused by love hurts but pain caused by cruelty is toxic.

I grew up with the teaching that we live in the “lone and dreary world.” Religion often teaches that this life is the test and the good stuff comes later if you pass. A core Buddhist philosophy is that “life is suffering.” Birth is suffering, death leaves a wake of pain, and in between is more sorrow than sometimes seams bearable. But what would I be without pain? My pain has carved and forged me into the person I am today and for the most part, I like who I am. I wouldn’t trade my pain. But the thought of future pain scares me and sometimes I hold myself back because I’m afraid of what is around the next corner.

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Curtis has been having a hard time with a kid at school. He’s tried to avoid him for the last few weeks because of teasing, name calling, and threats. To Curti’s credit, he’s ignored most of it. So I was pretty surprised when I got a call yesterday that Curtis had to go see the principal because he’d been in a fight and the other parents want to press charges.

I’ve been there and it’s no fun to be bullied. I used to try and make friends with my bullies…sometimes it even worked. One of my worst bullies in 4th grade ended up being one of my good friends through High School. In 9th grade (I was still short and an easy target), I gave a kid that used to push me around a Snickers bar. He went from bullying me to protecting me. We never talked and weren’t really friends, but if he was walking by and somebody was bothering me he’d put an instant stop to it. I felt like I had a personal bodyguard, it was great! But it didn’t always work. Once while trying to befriend one, he took a quick swing and hit me in the jaw. There was a lot of blood and my face was swollen for weeks. Twice I got hit in the face and never fought back. I go back and forth as to which is better. Sometimes I’m glad I didn’t, other times I wish I would have…

So I can’t blame Curtis. The other day on the way home the harassment was upped a notch and the other kid said he was going to beat Curtis up when they got off the bus. Curtis said he tried to hurry home but the kid came after him and threw down his backpack. There were other boys around egging them on, which made it worse, so when the kid came in close Curtis hit him in the face. The kid jumped on him and they were wrestling on the ground when the kid’s mom came and put a stop to it all.

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When I was 19, I was asked to talk to two 14 year old boys waiting for their murder trial in a South African prison. I was new to South Africa and my Afrikaans was weak, so I didn’t realize what I had agreed to do until the policeman started leading me through electric fences, heavy metal doors, and long cement walled hallways. I had been a Mormon missionary in Welkom, South Africa for only a few weeks; new to the country, new to the language, and new to being away from home. Bruno Gerber, the missionary I was teamed with, was speaking Afrikaans to the officer and I only understood a tenth of what was said.

We reached a large cement door that looked more like it was made for a bank vault than a prison cell. Bruno turned to me and said, “Andrew is Afrikaans, so I’ll talk to him. You talk to Sorrow, he’s English.”

The door creaked, light appeared through the cracks of the door, and my heart raced. What would I say to this killer that murdered a policeman. I imagined a hardened criminal inside, wearing a leather vest with a tattoo of a skull on his shoulder. I was scared and confused as to why Bruno had agreed to such nonsense.

I walked in the room and was shocked. Two clean cut teenage boys were sitting on the floor surrounded by comic books. They looked at the guard and readily nodded when he told them they needed to talk to us. Then the guard left. I walked over and sat by Sorrow. His eyes were not full of anger and hostility as I’d imagined. They were the eyes of a scared boy, looking for help.

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I’ve been burned before, we all have. And I can even think of people that I have wronged. I look back on these my actions and don’t feel I was purposely deceiving, but then, the people who have wronged me don’t feel that way either. That bothers me. Maybe I’m just justifying my mistakes.

Years ago I owned a small business and hired a seemingly well-balanced guy as my office manager. Over the months, I began to regard him as a friend. When my bank account started running surprisingly low, I audited the books and found he had been embezzling from me. A discovery that packed both an emotional and financial sting. For a month my friend had been smiling to my face and taking money from behind my back. When the cops arrested him he claimed he had done nothing wrong and that he had intended to pay the money back.

At another job, several high valued items of inventory turn up missing (quarter of a million bucks worth). The manager of that department reported to me and I worked with him to find out what happened. My boss didn’t trust him at all and suggested he was a thief, but I defended him. I wanted to trust him. As the investigation heated up, he finally came into my office one morning and confessed to taking all of it. I was stunned. Again, I was an idiot, right? Gullible and trusting when I shouldn’t have…I felt like a putz.

I have more examples, and I won’t even go into relationship betrayals. But believe me when I say I carry some deep wounds there. But in terms of trust, I not only carry wounds from the people who let me down, I have wounds from the regrets I have for people that didn’t get the proper treatment from me. I’m determined not to make the same mistakes in the future.

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I stumbled across this book a couple years ago before my wife and I were married. A friend had left it at her apartment and I started thumbing through it and couldn’t put it down. I left it on the coffee table and went home with the intent of finding it at the library. When her friend left to go home to New Zealand, she left it with Sandi to give it to me. I finished the book within a few days.

I’ve never understood how my dad could plug away at the same job, year after year after decade. He never complained, in fact, he seemed to enjoy it. It’s never been like that for me. I could digress into an entire disposition about my struggles with work. Maybe it’s my depressive nature, my existentialistic core, or maybe I’m just spoiled rotten and don’t know how to buckle down and work. I get bored with jobs. I like new challenges and I like to be doing things that actually feel meaningful. When those things fall into place I dig in with a passion that might be better described as an addiction. But I’m picky as to what “meaningful” means.

I’ve often felt out of place in the modern world, like I just don’t fit. Don’t get me wrong, I have good jobs and I get good reviews from my employers. I just don’t feel happy about it. I feel like I’m wasting time and spending most of my time doing stuff that doesn’t matter at all. I often wonder if I missed my calling in life…my passions are writing and photography but I got a Masters in Accounting and computers. I can make good money doing those things so I don’t bail and pursue what I love. I keep telling myself some day I’ll do it. When take the time to write or take pictures I enjoy myself so much I feel depressed that I can’t do them all day long. That’s me, too often seeing the storm instead of the rainbow.

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I normally don’t play games like this, but as I was laying in bed I had some good ideas. I’ll answer my mom’s challenge to write about 5 things I didn’t expect to happen in my life. Rather than writing about what I expected at age 25, I’m going younger. Five things I didn’t expect in my life when I was growing up. They are negative, I’ll warn you now. But I had high expectations as a kid. The good news is that I’m getting used to being mediocre.

1. That I’d get divorced

I never imagined this one. As a child, there was no divorce in my family…extended family included (and my parents come from huge families). Later as a teenager there were two, but percentage-wise, it’s a tiny proportion. It’s just something that wasn’t considered. Families stayed together. Parents worked on things and stuck it out. It was hard to know which to rate first, this one or number two (below), but I decided this one has shaken up my world than anything else. I still often feel disoriented, like I failed in other peoples eyes, and sometimes like I’m standing out in the middle of a desert with no idea where I am and where to go. Up until the moment Kim said the words "I want a divorce and I’ve already seen an attorney," I didn’t expect it. There were clues, I knew things weren’t going good, but I never expected she wanted to actually end it. It sucked. The next three months were the worst of my life, but then ushered me into some of the best. Looking back it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Believe me, I never imagined I’d say those words.

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